Taylor Swift has released her surprise new album ‘Folklore’.
The 30-year-old star dropped her eighth record at midnight on Thursday (23.07.20), less than a year after the release of her seventh studio album ‘Lover’ and she admitted that "in isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result".
In a lengthy message on Instagram to celebrate the record and explain where her inspiration had come from during the Covid-19 lockdown, Taylor wrote: "It started with imagery. Visuals that popped into my mind and piqued my curiosity.
"Stars drawn around scars. A cardigan that still bears the scent of loss twenty years later. Battleships sinking into the ocean, down, down, down. The tree swing in the woods of my childhood. Hushed tones of ‘let’s run away’ and never doing it. The sun drenched month of August, sipped away like a bottle of wine. A mirrored disco ball hovering above a dance floor. A whiskey bottle beckoning. Hands held through plastic. A single thread that, for better or for worse, ties you to your fate.
"Pretty soon these images in my head grew faces or names and became characters. I found myself not only writing my own stories, but also writing about or from the perspective of people I’ve never met, people I’ve known, or those I wish I hadn’t. An exiled man walking the bluffs of a land that isn’t his own, wondering how it all went so terribly, terribly wrong. An embittered tormentor showing up at the funeral of his fallen object of obsession. A seventeen-year-old standing on a porch, learning to apologise. Lovestruck kids wandering up and down the evergreen High Line. My grandfather, Dean, landing at Guadalcanal in 1942. A misfit widow getting gleeful revenge on the town that cast her out.
"A tale that becomes folklore is one that is passed down and whispered around. Sometimes even sung about. The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact. Myths, ghost stories, and fables. Fairytales and parables. Gossip and legend. Someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold.
"In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve.
"Now it’s up to you to pass them down."
Taylor also revealed that she is releasing "eight deluxe CDs and eight deluxe vinyls" of the record with the bonus track ‘the lakes’, to celebrate her eighth studio album.
She tweeted: "folklore will have 16 songs on the standard edition, but the physical deluxe editions will include a bonus track "the lakes." Because this is my 8th studio album, I made 8 deluxe CDs & 8 deluxe vinyls available for 1 week. Each has unique covers & photos (sic)."
Taylor has also released a video for the track ‘Cardigan’, and admitted she did her own hair and make-up for the shoot, to adhere to social distancing guidelines amid the Covid-19 pandemic.