Taylor Swift took to social media this morning to announce a new album drop at midnight Eastern Time on December 11th. The album, entitled evermore – will be a sister album to folklore which released in July. Both albums this year came as surprise drops, something fans have had immense response to amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new album drop is a departure from her typical style of releasing album’s as one off “eras” in her musical career. Swift comments on this in a Facebook post following the announcement as,
“To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs. To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in. I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning”.
The standard edition of evermore will feature fifteen new songs with collaborations from Bon Iver, The National, and Haim. There will also be a deluxe edition, with an additional two songs. In addition to the album, there will also be a release of a music video for the song “willow” on Youtube.
This comes only two weeks after Taylor Swift released the Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions – a musical documentary on the streaming service Disney+. The film features the performance of all seventeen songs on folklore and commentary from Taylor and producers Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff. A companion album to the documentary featuring the songs performed live was also released.
Swift will turn 31 on Sunday, eleven days before Christmas. Recognizing that many people will be away from their families this year because of the pandemic, she dedicated the album to them saying, “I also know this holiday season will be a lonely one for most of us and if there are any of you out there who turn to music to cope with missing loved ones the way I do, this is for you”.