How Taylor Swift’s Folklore Became My No. 1 Album of 2020

I feel like I owe an explanation.

Let me start by saying this: It was touch-and-go whether or not I was going to make an end-of-year albums list at all. As someone with textbook Imposter’s Syndrome, I don’t like to project the idea that I’m some great arbiter of taste. I also won’t sit here and tell you that I’ve listened to all the albums that were worth listening to in 2020. How could I? I was too busy listening to Paris Hilton’s music for the bajillionth time. I don’t think my list should be looked at as some important decree. More than anything, I just figured that if I’m going to dedicate my content to some of the most hated music of our time, I may as well end the year by tipping my hat to some of the music I actually loved.

Let me continue by saying this: when I started making this list, I did not think Folklore - Taylor Swift’s indie-inspired album released in late-July - was going to take the number one spot. I knew I liked the album. In fact, it’s probably my favorite Taylor Swift album yet. However, my relationship with her music often takes the form of morbid fascination rather than genuine fandom, so that’s really not saying all that much. What I’m trying to get at is that if you’re surprised my number one album of 2020 was Folklore, that’s something we have in common.

Here’s what happened:

Over the past few years, I’ve become obsessed with pop music. This is for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that - I don’t know if you’ve been reading the news lately - shit is kinda stressful right now, and pop music can be a terribly effective salve. At the end of the day, The Skip Button is about how we as a society decide which music is worth our love and attention and which music isn’t. That’s what fascinates me more than anything, and it’s why I find myself enamored with all things pop. This doesn’t mean that I automatically love all pop music, it just means that when an artist as big as Taylor Swift releases a new album, I become fixated; I break it apart, put it back together again, and repeat. When Folklore came out, you couldn’t talk to me about anything else.

When I made this list, I had to acknowledge the fact that, during the year 2020, I didn’t scrutinize any album as much as I did Folklore. This might be unfair. However, I also had to recognize that the more I scrutinized this album, the more I felt it holding up to my scrutiny. (A foil for this would be Ariana Grande’s Positions, an equally exciting 2020 release that, although it had its high notes [pun intended], didn’t prove as withstanding as Folklore.)

Is Folklore the most consistent album of the year? No. For me, that’s my #3 pick, Dua Lipa’s maximalist-yet-intimate Future Nostalgia. Is it the album that most immediately captured my heart? No, that would probably be my #2 pick, We Will Always Love You by electronic duo, The Avalanches. 

And yet, no album received as much of my fascination as Folklore. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, this was the album I kept gravitating towards as I made my list. Beads of sweat appeared on my brow as I saw it climbing the ranks, overtaking Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters - one of the most critically-acclaimed albums of the year - beating out Apolonio - the funky and smooth debut album by up-and-comer, Omar Apollo - and eventually robbing The Avalanches of the top prize.

The honest if unfair reason Folklore ultimately took the title of my number one album of 2020 is that, as Tony Bennett once said to me, “There’s a line between love and fascination.” 

So what fascinated me so much about this album?

The unifying appeal of Taylor’s discography is that you can never quite tell where the fairy tale ends and reality begins. Since her debut in 2006, no one could listen to her music and be told that they hadn’t also met their Prince Charming and/or had him stolen from them. I’m a 26-year-old straight man and I still wish “Drew” would just notice me. What does she have that I don’t, Drew?!

The difference between the fairy tale in Folklore and the ones in her previous albums is that, rather than focusing on plot - true love’s kiss, wicked witches, etc. - this album instead chooses to zoom in on the story’s finer details: the landscapes, the architecture, the townspeople. We meet ancestors of the neighborhood (like Rebekah Harkness in “The Last Great American Dynasty”), local attractions (like Centennial Park in “Invisible String”), and childhood friends (like in my personal favorite song, “Seven”). We see the textures and colors that raised Cinderella so that, when she finally lives happily ever after, we feel it more viscerally. 

The sound of the album, co-created by The National’s Aaron Desner, is appropriately subtler and more nuanced. These tracks feel less like in-your-face Broadway numbers and instead feel almost diegetic, as if they’re songs you might hear in the background as you walk through Centennial Park.

Along the way, Taylor is also able to cleverly weave the tale of a love triangle. “Cardigan”, “August”, and “Betty” work as individual songs but also act as chapters of the same book, telling a love story from three different perspectives, and perhaps also acting as an incentive to see the album all the way through. “Betty” is not only the trilogy’s cathartic ending, it’s also a beautiful full-circle moment in Taylor’s career as a songwriter. It’s an ode to the love-drunk country-pop she used to make, only this time, written by a wiser, more capable story-teller. The song almost feels like Taylor patting her younger self on the head, saying “don’t worry, you turn out alright, kid.”

Through these intricately-designed, multi-faceted tales, Taylor follows through on the promise she makes on the stand-out track, “Mirrorball”: 

“I’m a mirrorball/ I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight/ I’ll get you out on the floor/ shimmering beautiful”

Indeed, Folklore is shimmering and beautiful, delicately shedding light on every character it encounters.

As I said, this isn’t the most consistent album that was made this year. A couple weeks ago, I posted my FolkMore playlist, which included songs from Evermore, Folklore’s somewhat-disappointing follow-up released in December. Needless to say, there are songs on Folklore that didn’t make the cut, like the momentum-killing “Epiphany” and the too-on-the-nose “Mad Woman”. The album is also bookended by two of its more boring songs, “The 1” and “Hoax”. 

And yet none of these songs were enough to keep me from coming back. Listening to this album, I’m like Fred Savage in “The Princess Bride”: I get bored, I roll my eyes at “the kissing parts”, and am convinced the narrator is messing up. But when the story ends, I ask if it can be read to me again tomorrow.

So that’s it; that’s my explanation for why Folklore had to be my number one album of 2020.

However, considering the kind of content I host, I also feel the need to give Taylor Swift fans a different explanation: an explanation as to why I felt the need to give an explanation.

When it comes to Taylor Swift, there is a part of me that is still a 15-year-old boy, the one that groaned whenever “You Belong With Me” came on, as if it wasn’t the goddamn song of the year. My subconscious still engages with the idea that “real” men don’t listen to Taylor Swift. 

Also, let’s be honest, Taylor could (and will at some point, I promise) have a Skip Button episode all to herself. She’s received criticism for being fake, for being complicit in the racism and sexism that pervades the music industry, and for her long and infamous dating history. That’s all to say nothing of her music, which her critics find annoying and campy. As many people as there are who love her, there are plenty who find her the epitome of everything wrong with mainstream culture. In short, it’s not really all that cool to like Taylor Swift.

Look, I’m cool. I mean... I host a podcast. So, being this early into my career, it took a lot for me to admit that Taylor was on the top of my year-end list. It confirms that I have, as my gay neighbor once told me, “the musical taste of a closeted 30-year-old”. However, there came a point in making this list where I had to step back, really look at my 2020, and ask “what did I listen to this year that actually mattered to me?” Much like I did when it came to Pitbull, I need to swallow my pride and just be honest: 

In 2020, I listened to Folklore. A lot. And I loved almost every minute of it.