it's golden

Jane Austen was really out there 200 years ago writing lines like “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more” that to this day are still so swoon-worthy.

it strikes me that reputation and folklore are both written in lowercase and have black and white aesthetics. but while reputation was an album about taylor dealing with the reputation that the world had created for her, folklore is an album that’s about her creating her own stories, not only about herself but also about other people and things that she’s never personally experienced. it’s like reputation was the stories that the world told about her and who she was, and now she’s kind of turning it around and creating her own stories, her own folklore. in this essay i will—

Both albums depict the blurring of truth and fiction: in “reputation”, Taylor explores the way the stories told about her colour her reality and often erase the truth, if not render truth secondary to story. Whilst “reputation” is an exploration of how the truth can be bent, manipulated, or sacrificed in order to present a story worth hearing, “folklore” sees Taylor weaving stories and fictions that reveal truth. “Reputation” pits truth and fiction as rivals, each other’s antithesis: “folklore” suggests the two have a complicated and multifaceted relationship, and share a love, a “folk song that will be passed down forever.” In this follow up essay I will—

reblog if there isn’t a single skip on folklore for you

The fact that there has been no lead single and we have no idea what the album is going to sound like is so exciting to me! I can’t wait for midnight tonight to just press play and listen to the album from start to finish for the first time without any sneak peaks. It’s going to be so different but good different! This is going to be amazing!