Taylor Swift: Folklore (EMI)
Verdict: Taylor springs a surprise
Alanis Morissette: Such Pretty Forks In The Road (RCA)
Verdict: Polished return
Rating: 
This should have been a summer spent on the road for Taylor Swift. She had intended to take her Lover Fest show around the world, headlining Glastonbury and London’s Hyde Park and playing in South America for the first time.
The open-air tour was due to finish this weekend with two stadium concerts in Boston. Instead, she has been locked down like the rest of us, with just her nearest and dearest for company and time on her hands.
For a singer who has managed her career with ruthless precision — jumping from country to pop; settling old scores on 2017’s peevish Reputation — quarantine must have been a shock to the system.
Those expecting Taylor Swift to revisit the blockbuster hooks of hits such as Shake It Off in her new albumshould probably look away now – Folklore is a Taylor Swift album unlike any other
‘Most of the things I had planned this summer didn’t end up happening, but there is something I hadn’t planned on that did happen,’ she says. That something is her eighth studio album Folklore, a set of songs — ‘whims, dreams, fears and musings’ — written in three months, recorded with some surprising guests and released with no advance razzmatazz.
Those expecting her to revisit the blockbuster hooks of hits such as Shake It Off should probably look away now. Folklore is a Taylor Swift album unlike any other.
Made with some of the biggest names in American alternative music, it is soft and subtle. As its title suggests, it contains a few folky moments, though the overall sound is closer to modern indie-rock.
Swift isn’t the first major pop diva to ‘go indie’. Kylie did it on 1997’s Impossible Princess, and Miley Cyrus tapped into her natural rebelliousness on her Dead Petz project.
Folkore, however, has more in common with her former touring partner Charli XCX’s recent lockdown album How I’m Feeling Now: both records have an immediacy that stems from not over-thinking things.
As for her new collaborators, the most striking name is that of Aaron Dessner, of The National, a group dubbed America’s Radiohead by Vanity Fair.
Dessner co-writes or produces 11 of the 16 tracks here and is joined by his brother Bryce, who supplies orchestration, and Swift’s regular producer Jack Antonoff.
Opening track The 1 sets a tender tone, its simple piano enhanced with a touch of modern, digital rhythm. ‘If my wishes came true, it would have been you,’ sings Taylor, yearning for the one that got away. Lost love is the theme again on Cardigan, with Swift daydreaming of hanging around in downtown bars.
If the arrangements are subdued by her usual standards, she retains some of her commercial instincts.
Taylor Swift is dating British actor Joe Alwyn (subject of the awful London Boy on her last album, Lover), but Folklore is full of deceit and regret
Dessner had brought a quirky, shimmering invention to her music but the songs themselves are well structured and tuneful: she duets brilliantly with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on the powerful ballad Exile.
One thing that survives from her early days in Nashville is a respect for country’s storytelling tradition, and she deploys those skills to great effect on The Last Great American Dynasty, a song inspired by the life of the late socialite Rebekah Harkness, a middle-class divorcee who married into oil money and inherited her second husband’s fortune.
‘The wedding was charming, if a little gauche,’ we’re told. ‘There’s only so far new money goes.’ In a neat twist, Swift finishes the song by switching from the third to first person to add heft to her narrative. ‘There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen,’ she sings. ‘I had a marvellous time ruining everything.’
There’s more intrigue, too, on Illicit Affairs, an adulterous tale set to an acoustic strum with a side-dish of electronica.
Swift is dating British actor Joe Alwyn (subject of the awful London Boy on her last album, Lover), but Folklore is full of deceit and regret: ‘What started in beautiful rooms ends with meetings in parking lots.’
With little variation — and over an hour’s worth of music — Folklore could easily have been trimmed down, but it’s a bold statement from an artist acting on impulse rather than plotting every move. We are familiar with Taylor the pop star. She’s now reintroducing herself as a credible singer-songwriter.
Alanis Morissette became the queen of the confessional when her third album, Jagged Little Pill, sold 33 million copies.
Songs such as You Oughta Know gave angry inspiration to a generation of female songwriters and the landmark 1995 collection was eventually turned into a Broadway musical.
There’s nothing as abrasive on Such Pretty Forks In The Road, her first album in eight years, but the Canadian still has a lot on her mind: she addresses addiction on Reasons I Drink, post-natal depression on Diagnosis, and the wrongdoing of a former business manager on Pedestal.
Alanis Morissette became the queen of the confessional when her third album, Jagged Little Pill, sold 33 million copies
On Smiling, she also looks back, 25 years on, to Jagged Little Pill. Written for 2018’s Broadway show, the track is a poised guitar rocker that acknowledges the tough times — and her determination to prevail. ‘I keep on smiling, keep on moving,’ she sings, making the most of her impressive vocal range as she hits the high notes.
Written with her touring keyboardist Michael Farrell, Such Pretty Forks . . . is weightier than 2012’s Havoc And Bright Lights, and all the better for it.
Alanis, 46, sings poignantly of her three young children — ‘my mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze’ — and displays maturity on piano ballads Missing The Miracle and Losing The Plot. The fury of old may have gone, but she remains a captivating performer.
Quarantine brings out the poetry in Lana
Lana Del Rey has often been accused of rehashing the same old themes, but she’s trying something different with Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, her first volume of poetry. Out this week as an audiobook — with one poem, LA Who Am I To Love You, available on music-streaming platforms — it’s certainly a departure.
Her best songs have always sounded like compelling short stories, and she reads her wry, nostalgic lines in a soft American accent. But despite a backdrop of ambient piano and guitar, these tales of tarnished romance feel threadbare without her usual lush melodies. Print, CD, vinyl and cassette editions follow in the autumn.
Lana Del Rey has been accused of rehashing the same old themes, but she’s trying something different with Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, her first volume of poetry
A Los Angeles-based act of an older vintage are also returning. Led by Belinda Carlisle, all-girl punk quintet The Go-Go’s were punchy cornerstones of the American new wave during the 1980s.
Club Zero, their first single in 19 years, summons up the irreverent spirit of early hits We Got The Beat and Our Lips Are Sealed.
Little Mix, meanwhile, are gearing up for their sixth album with a new single, Holiday, that mixes electronic bass and bubbly harmonies.
And soul man John Legend’s Bigger Love, title track of his latest album, has been given a vibrant Latin makeover by Venezuelan brothers Mauricio and Ricardo Montaner (Mau y Ricky).