Taylor Swift’s latest album “Evermore”: Release, Collabs, Reatcions on Social Media

Stunning fans by announcing another new album amid Covid-19 pandemic

On Thursday morning Taylor Swift stunned her fans by announcing that she was dropping yet another new album, this one in time for the holiday season. The album will be called evermore and is available for digital pre-order right now, For The Win reported.

Taylor Swift announced the release of her ninth studio album,

It’s the holiday season and Taylor Swift has a gift. Swift announced the track list and shared the cover art in a tweet on Thursday morning:

“I’m elated to tell you that my 9th studio album, and folklore’s sister record, will be out tonight at midnight eastern,” she tweeted. “It’s called evermore.”

“Folklore” dropped this summer to both critical and commercial success.

According to Swift, “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,” she tweeted “We chose to wander deeper in.”

Taylor Swift’s announcement. Photo: Twitter.

Swift also tweeted that the music video for her single “Willow” would also be released at midnight. And she shared the track list for the new album, which includes a song called “Closure.”

“Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards, which is why I wanted to surprise you with this now,” Swift tweeted. “You’ve all been so caring, supportive and thoughtful on my birthdays and so this time I thought I would give you something!”

“Evermore” features 15 tracks on the standard album, with two bonus tracks on the deluxe edition, CNN reported.

While much of the music industry slowed this year because of Covid-19, which wiped out live touring and caused some major artists to delay or alter release plans, Swift has steadily promoted “Folklore” throughout, egging on fans via social media as they explored the songs’ mythologies and releasing plenty of merchandise.

Photo: Twitter

A new album features many of the same collaborators as “Folklore”

According to NY Times, “Evermore” features the same core creative team as “Folklore”: Aaron Dessner of the indie-rock band the National and the producer Jack Antonoff (one of her longtime collaborators), along with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and William Bowery (a.k.a. her boyfriend, the actor Joe Alwyn, who has writing credits on the “Folklore” songs “Exile” and “Betty”). New guests include Haim and the National.

“Folklore” has been a chart blockbuster, holding No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for eight nonconsecutive weeks and becoming the first album to sell 1 million copies in 2020. Last month, it received five of Swift’s total of six Grammy nominations for the 2021 ceremony, including album of the year; its first single, “Cardigan,” is up for best song.

Taylor Swift. Photo: Variety.

Taylor Swift’s fans are flooding social media after her stunning announcement

Taylor Swift’s music “saved 2020” amid Covid-19 pandemic

Despite Swift’s habit of catching fans off guard with her announcements, people were shocked that she’d secretly written and recorded an entirely new album months after “Folklore,” which earned five nominations at the 2021 Grammy Awards.

Because the artist wrote both “Folklore” and “Evermore” during the pandemic, many people joked that her music “saved 2020” and created memes in anticipation of the album’s release.

Photo: Twitter

Fans tried to unearth the hints leading up to ‘Evermore’

According to Insider, in the hours following Swift’s announcement, fans scrambled to retrace any Easter eggs that the artist, who’s known for sliding hints to fans ahead of major releases, made ahead of “Evermore.”

Many noticed that Swift said there was “not a lot going on at the moment” while she was writing both “Folklore” and “Evermore” and expressed disappointment that they didn’t connect the dots.

They also pointed out that the artist tweeted nine Christmas trees on Wednesday, which may have been a hint that she was releasing her ninth studio album.

In her interview with Entertainment Weekly that was published on Wednesday, Swift also subtly said she was “on a video shoot” that she was directing with Rodrigo Prieto when she learned the 2020 presidential-election results.

The next day, she mentioned Prieto as one of the creatives who “helped and guided me to be able to direct my own videos,” along with the news that she’d release a music video for “Willow.”

Photo: Twitter

When Rolling Stone released its ranking of the top 50 albums of 2020 on Friday and listed “Folklore” as No. 1, Swift responded by writing, “throws self to the base of a willow tree by a reflection pool at midnight.”

Though many fans brushed off the tweet as a playful show of gratitude, they later circled back to it as a reference to her upcoming song “Willow.”

The artist’s fans have been keen to find clues about “Evermore” in each appearance Swift has made since “Folklore,” even citing her hairstyle at the 2020 American Music Awards as an overlooked Easter egg.

“Folklore” fans also looked to the eighth studio album to form predictions about what was to come on “Evermore.”

“Epiphany,” the 13th song on “Folklore,” serves as a tribute to her grandfather Dean. The 13th track on “Evermore” is called “Marjorie,” which was her grandmother’s first name.

Photo: Twitter

It’s also worth noting that Swift’s lucky number is 13, so it makes sense that she’d choose to sing about something personal on those tracks.

In her “Folklore” bonus track, “The Lakes,” she references the Lake Poets from early-19th-century England. Fans speculated that the “Evermore” release date may pay homage to another poet: Emily Dickinson.

Not only was Dickinson’s birthday on December 10, the date that Swift will release “Evermore,” but a fan drew attention to the fact that Dickinson ended a poem called “One Sister Have I in Our House” with the word “forevermore.”