exile - Innovation and Accessibility
Far too often, I get Breaking News alerts on my phone that hardly deserve stopping the presses. I don’t need to be notified that Kanye is holding a rally, or Christopher Nolan is still releasing Tenet overseas, or that Taylor Swift is surprise releasing an album. Or atleast, I didn’t think I needed that notification until I saw she was featuring my favorite group, Bon Iver. That’s notification worthy news! Their collaboration, ‘exile’, is the fourth on Taylor Swift's new album, Folklore. I think it’s the best song on the record. It is a perfect balance of the best of both Bon Iver and Taylor Swift: Bon Iver’s vocal experimentation and innovation tempered by Taylor Swift's unparalleled accessibility.
Justin Vernon’s project Bon Iver peaked in popularity in 2012 when the group won best new artist at the Grammys. Since then it’s gotten, well, weird. On 2016s 22, a Million the soothing falsetto and acoustic instrumentation of prior albums are mostly gone. In their place there’s a gnarled, electronic soundscape and prismatic, distorted voices. Songs suddenly have names like ‘10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄’ (which sounds like a drum machine falling down the steps) and ‘715 - CR∑∑KS’. I love 22, a Million. The disorientation and estrangement of the sounds match the themes of isolation and abandonment. The way Justin Vernon layers vocals allows him to continually reinvest a single phrase with new depth and meaning, like on the song ‘Woods’ which repeats the same phrase over and over with more and more voices, pitches, and timbre.
Taylor Swift also switched gears in 2012 with the release of her album Red. She began her career as a country star, and built her reputation as the girl next door. Red was her first shift into the world of pop music that would shape her next three albums. Unlike Bon Iver, Taylor Swift is wildly popular and has remained so since 2012. All of her albums since 2008’s Fearless have peaked at the number one spot on Billboard. By contrast, Bon Iver’s last album, i,i, peaked at 26. Taylor Swift’s greatest strength is her relatability. While Bon Iver has shifted to making the type of music that you listen to and say “oh that’s interesting,” Taylor Swift’s has always been the type of music people see themselves in, and you dance to at weddings. I didn’t know I was waiting for a collaboration between the two of them, but ‘exile’ manages to incorporate the complex vocal layering that I love from Bon Iver’s later work with the accessibility and reliability of Taylor Swift’s greatest work. It’s a haunting song of a failed relationship, where the couple is still talking over top of and past each other. The layering in the vocals of the song reflects why the relationship could never work.
For me, ‘exile’ is a brilliant example of what I often struggle to achieve. Together, Taylor Swift and Bon Iver do what neither of them could do separately, being both innovative and accessible. For all of the brilliant things I think the group is doing, Bon Iver needs Taylor Swift’s relentless accessibility to help people recognize that. Personally, on the axis of accessible and experimental, my preference for music, and especially literature, leans heavily towards experimental. One of my goals in writing these articles is to make innovative and experimental things accessible. That’s why I’ve previously written about Bon Iver, and why I’m constantly writing about Russian Literature or comparing Shakespeare to Cardi B. H(A)PPY and I AM SOVEREIGN by Nicola Barker and Flights by Olga Tokarczuk are some of the most brilliant and structurally adventurous books that I’ve read, and I want more people to appreciate and read them. There is so much great work being done in the world of fiction and music that I want people to experience for themselves.
Yet, it is often a struggle for me to communicate what I like about these innovative books or songs. I’ve recommended (and forced people to listen to) 22, a Million more times than I can count, and I’m not sure if anyone that’s given into my pestering has ever listened to it again. The list of times I’ve failed to convince people to read War and Peace, would only be slightly shorter than the novel. Strangely, ‘exile’ by balancing musical innovation and accessibility reminded me of the author Malcolm Gladwell. I have long been immensely jealous of Malcolm Gladwell’s uncanny ability to make something that no one cares about the most interesting subject in the world. Obscure and forgotten things like the Jesuit way to solve problems, or a particular song that Elvis couldn’t sing live, or golf courses in California have never crossed my mind, but for forty minutes of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History (and usually for a day or two afterwards) they’re all I care about. Sportscasters will often ask athletes to say what talent they would steal from another player. If I could steal anyone’s skill, it would be Malcolm Gladwell’s ability to make other people care about what he cares about.
That’ll take time and practice, and until that day ‘exile’ by Taylor Swift feat. Bon Iver will be here to remind me that being simultaneously innovative and accessible is possible.
