A critic’s 8.0 score for Taylor Swift’s Folklore was objectively favorable.

Evidence

In her Pitchfork review of Taylor Swift’s surprise 2020 indie-inflected album, Folklore, critic Jill Mapes offered line after line of effusive praise: “Her biggest strength is her storytelling, her well-honed songwriting craft meeting the vivid whimsy of her imagination.” Mapes called the third track, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” an “all-timer” and an “instant classic” with “textural and tastefully majestic” qualities and “Fitzgerald-esque lines.” Pitchfork awarded the album an 8.0—a very good score, much higher than the 6.5 given to Swift’s 2017 album, Reputation, and the 7.1 given to 2019’s Lover. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 523