Melissa Kacar

On this day five years ago, Taylor Swift wrote one of the most defining songs of her entire career, "cardigan". This song shapes so much of the underlying storyline of Folklore and lays the foundation for much of the work she created in the years since. Alongside the premiere of the "cardigan" music video in 2020, Taylor wrote, "This song is about a lost romance and why young love is often fixed so permanently within our memories. Why it leaves such an indelible mark." It remains a stunning example of her ability to blend wistful nostalgia with deeply evocative storytelling.  This song, along with the rest of what eventually became Folklore , emerged from the quiet solitude of the early days of the pandemic. Taylor created the entirety of this record alone at home, collaborating virtually with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff , a particularly prolific and creatively fulfilling period in which she wrote two albums in close succession.  Folklore came toge...

٠࣪⭑ "I was catching my breath, floors of a cabin creaking under my step and I couldn't be sure, I had a feeling so peculiar, this pain wouldn't be for evermore" ⋆˚࿔ Taylor Swift released the stunning evermore 5 years ago today and it remains perhaps the most important creative chapter of her career thus far. It was her second surprise album of 2020, following folklore in the summer, which took her in a deeply poetic and introspective songwriting direction. Written through that period of isolation in the pandemic, she stepped back into the folklorian woods to continue to explore so many facets of her life through a narrative storytelling approach. Some rooted in her real life, others rooted in fictional stories, these songs brought such comfort through that time for so many. folklore feels like the embodiment of spring and summer, an album that is full of whimsy and nostalgia. In contrast,  evermore is its fall and winter counterpart. It approaches the same period o...

Red carries an incredibly impactful legacy, not just one as one of the defining albums of Taylor Swift 's career, but as a turning point that paved the way for so many artists that followed. It truly shaped a new generation of pop and country music in an insurmountable way. Largely seen as one of the most influential and successful country-pop crossovers in modern music, she redefined her signature sound and made a genre-defying statement that marked the beginning of her artistic transformation.  While she would go on fully embrace pop with 1989 two years later, the seeds of that shift were first planted here. During the creation of Red , Taylor worked with longtime collaborators Liz Rose and Nathan Chapman on tracks that leaned into her country and singer-songwriter roots. At the same time, she introduced new collaborators in the mix with pop producing legends Max Martin and Shellback , who ended up helping her craft some of the most iconic hits of her entire career.  R...

Now lost in the memory of a moment in time, Folklore is an album that offered an escape from the chaos of the world, creating space for timeless stories of love, loss, friendship, and heartbreak to be passed down like folk songs.  Folklore  was the first page in a new chapter for Taylor Swift , as the process of writing and releasing this album was completely different than anything she had done prior and went on to shape her approach to making music from that point forward. It was surprise released in the heat of the cruelest summer yet - with the intention for this music serving as a form of escapism from all of the stress and fear that was at the forefront of everyone's minds during the early months of the pandemic. Taylor wrote these songs from many different perspectives, some rooted in her real-life experiences, others more based on fiction. She built up storylines within the lyrics that were all intricately tied together by an invisible string.  Pulling from her pa...