The germination of a new album under lockdown

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com/Reuters) –Taylor Swift surprised her fans and the music world when she announced the release of her eighth studio album, “Folklore,” Thursday midnight.

“Folklore” features a quieter indie folk sensibility for the 30-year-old singer, who began as a country star then turned to pop.

In a social media posts, Swift explained that the album is the result of many of her plans for 2020 – including a short stadium tour supporting her 2019 album “Lover” – being scrapped due to the pandemic.

In lockdown, she wrote the new album’s songs in isolation, collaborating with Aaron Dessner of the National, Bon Iver, William Bowery and Jack Antonoff.

Swift is a longtime National fan who was seen mingling backstage at the band’s June 2019 concert at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y.

She described the album as “entire brand new album of songs I’ve poured all of my whims, dreams, fears and musings into... Before this year, I probably would’ve overthought when to release this music at the ‘perfect time,’ but the times we’re living in keep reminding me that nothing is guaranteed. My gut is telling me that if you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world. That’s the side of uncertainty I can get on board with.”

The album is also a change in direction in that Dessner co-wrote or produced 11 of the 16 songs – a role Antonoff has played on her last three albums. She did not elaborate on Antonoff’s contributions but said he is “basically musical family at this point.” Bon Iver co-wrote several tracks and sang on the album, while Bowery – a new collaborator, which may be a pseudonym – co-wrote two songs.

Aaron Dessner wrote on social media that Swift approached him to co-write some songs in late April. “I thought it would take awhile for song ideas to come and I had no expectations as far as what we could accomplish remotely,” he admits. “But a few hours after sharing music, my phone lit up with a voice memo from Taylor of a fully written version of a song – the momentum never really stopped.”

Swift on Friday won some of the best reviews of her career for the album.

Rolling Stone said the album, with dreamy forest cover art, contained “the most head-spinning, heart-breaking, emotionally ambitious songs of her life.”

“’Folklore’ really feels like the debut album of a whole new Swift,” the music publication said. The album went to No. 1 on the worldwide iTunes chart within hours of its release.

Billboard called Folklore a “daring new vision of her artistry without a bad song in the batch,” while The Los Angeles Times called it the perfect quarantine album.

Swift rose to fame as a 16-yearold, whose intense lyrics about first love and alienation resonated with teen girls.

Now a 10-time Grammy winner, she turned to pop in 2014 and showed a darker side in 2017 album Reputation, in which she took aim at critics with songs like “Look What You Made Me Do.”