What to know about 'Evermore' - Taylor Swift's Second New Album in 2020

Taylor Swift announced the new album "evermore" on Thursday. Photo: Billboard

Evermore is the ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released through Republic Records on December 11, 2020, less than five months after Swift's eighth studio album, Folklore.

Surprise Release Of New Album ‘Evermore’ With Music & Video

Taylor Swift surprised fans with a social media announcement this morning that she will release new album Evermore tonight at midnight ET, along with a video for the new song “Willow.” Swift tweeted that she will log on to YouTube for the midnight premiere to answer questions about the album, which she described as a “sister” album to her recently released folklore, according to Deadline.

“To put it plainly,” Swift wrote, “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.”

The “we” refers to Swift and her folklore collaborators: co-writers and coproducers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner of The National. The new album also includes a song with Haim called “No Body, No Crime,” and a duet with Bon Iver as the title track. The song “Coney Island” features Dessner’s The National as her backing band.

“I’ve never done this before,” Swift continued in her series of tweets (see them below). “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 from folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them.”

What is in "Evermore"?

Taylor Swift made it clear that not all of the stories on her eighth and ninth albums, Folklore and Evermore, are autobiographical. Instead, she was inspired by stories she’s heard, movies she’s seen and more. Like Folklore, Evermore features a trilogy of songs that are all part of the same story. In a message to fans, Taylor referred to it as, “The ‘unhappily ever after’ anthology of marriages gone bad that includes infidelity, ambivalent toleration and even murder.”

Multiple tracks on Evermore tinker with pop structure and narrative design, as Swift -- working once again alongside collaborators like Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff and Bon Iver, and now pulling Haim into her sonic world -- crafts hooks for new characters while delving deeper into her own ideas of adult love and pain. Evermore is fully formed, less of a follow-up to Folklore than an expansion of its universe; there was fertile ground left to explore, and Swift summarily locates it.

Photo: The List

And while there are no skippable tracks on the new album, there are already a few standouts out of the 15 on the standard edition, that will be in heavier rotation in the near and distant future.

There are 15 tracks on the standard edition of "evermore" which are "willow, champagne problems, gold rush, ’tis the damn season, tolerate it, nobody, no crime, happiness, dorothea, coney island [ft. The National], ivy, cowboy like me, long story short, marjorie, closure and evermore [ft. Bon Iver]" but the deluxe physical edition will include two bonus tracks "right where you left me and it's time to go", Pitch Fork cites.

"Folklore" - The Older Sister of "Evermore"

“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 the best song, as reported by The New York Times.

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.

She performed in September at a socially distanced version of the Academy of Country Music Awards in Nashville and appeared virtually to claim artist of the year at the American Music Awards in November. Also last month, Swift released “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions,” a documentary detailing the making of “Folklore” that included stripped-down performances of its songs, on Disney+.

Every Song Ranked on Taylor Swift’s ‘Evermore’

Multiple tracks on Evermore tinker with pop structure and narrative design, as Swift -- working once again alongside collaborators like Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff and Bon Iver, and now pulling Haim into her sonic world -- crafts hooks for new characters while delving deeper into her own ideas of adult love and pain. Evermore is fully formed, less of a follow-up to Folklore than an expansion of its universe; there was fertile ground left to explore, and Swift summarily locates it, Billboard reported.

And while there are no skippable tracks on the new album, there are already a few standouts out of the 15 on the standard edition, that will be in heavier rotation in the near and distant future. Here is a humble, preliminary opinion on the best songs on Taylor Swift’s Evermore.

15. Coney Island feat. The National

After borrowing Aaron Dessner from The National for Folklore, Swift corrals the full band for “Coney Island,” a duet with singer Matt Berninger in which the two musical approaches meet in the middle. Whereas “Exile,” the Folklore duet with Bon Iver, was founded upon escalated drama, “Coney Island” rests on the gentle recollections of a pair that has shared a world, with Berninger’s soothing rumble returning every volley from Swift.

14. Dorothea

As she did on Folklore songs like “The Last Great American Dynasty” and “Betty,” Swift creates emotional stakes on “Dorothea” by zooming in on passed-down narratives and singing from a new perspectives. The backstories of the characters in “Dorothea” are less crucial than the drama that Swift constructs: a separation, a skipped prom and other well-worn memories, swinging alongside a guitar and tambourine.

13. Gold Rush

“Gold Rush” begins with a red herring, as Swift’s layered vocals shimmer in a manner that immediately recalls the Folklore standout “Mirrorball”; after a few seconds, however, the song finds a pulsating rhythm as Swift rapidly spills her jealous feelings and longstanding insecurities (“What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?” she wonders). “Gold Rush” keeps the listener guessing as it swivels in different directions, with drums, horns and violins flushing out Swift’s confessions.

12. Happiness

One of Evermore’s most brutal breakup songs exists within one of its most ornate arrangements, as woozy synthesizers morph into programmed beats, hi-hats, violin and bass. If a song like “Tolerate It” chronicles the dissolution of an unhappy pairing, “Happiness” captures the post-split scramble -- trying to figure out who you are now, what this means, why this has happened, whether there’s a whisper of reconciliation. Swift prods at her deepest scars, and the orchestration makes the pain sound essential.

11. Champagne Problems

During a different Taylor Swift era, “Champagne Problems” would make the back of a track list, an affecting piano ballad that helps balance out the pop onslaught. On Evermore, however, the song is positioned in the No. 2 slot as an opening salvo and centerpiece, with a quiet sense of hurt growing louder as the song’s story of a shriveled romance -- Swift’s narrator watching a past love move on, their bond frozen in time -- turns more urgent. It’s a lump-in-throat highlight that sets the tone for the album that follows.

10. Evermore feat. Bon Iver

Anyone who wrapped their arms around the unsparing ache in Bon Iver’s falsetto on For Emma, Forever Ago will get chills listening to “Evermore,” an aching interplay between Swift and Justin Vernon that hits unexpected speed midway through and reaches a thrilling high as they try to synchronize their voices. “Evermore” offers a cold, somber ending to the album of the same name that matches the grandeur of Folklore’s “Exile” and will steel your heart for winter.

9. Tolerate It

If Folklore examined the complexities of adult relationships in stark contrast to the star-crossed romances of her early records, a song like “Tolerate It” takes that study one step further, with Swift reckoning with the malaise of her partner to the point of resentment. The exercise is devastating for anyone who’s suspected an approaching ending, or watched a spark within someone they trust disappear: “If it’s all in my head, tell me now,” Swift pleads, “tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow.”

8. Cowboy Like Me

On a song that finds Swift circling around thoughts of love, independence and commitment in the context of another with a similar mindset, she and Dessner offer an ambitious mix of folk, sun-kissed alternative and a whiff of the country music that Swift was once rooted in. “Cowboy Like Me” shoots for the stars musically -- harmonica, mandolin, piano, and hey, there’s Marcus Mumford credited with vocals -- and grows into one of the album’s most decadent listens.

7. ’Tis The Damn Season

“You could call me ‘babe’ for the weekend,” Swift tells an old acquaintance during a trip home for the holidays, knocking around old haunts and wondering what might have been. The storytelling concept of “’Tis The Damn Season” comes as a change-up, but each lyrical detail sparkles, and Dessner’s electric guitar clangs on like a memory Swift can’t escape; the song wouldn’t sound too out of place on Speak Now or Red, but her voice is wiser now, and guides this one home.

6. Marjorie

After the thirteenth song on Folklore, “Epiphany,” referenced the military service of Swift’s grandfather, track 13 on Evermore is named after her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who passed away when Swift was 13 years old. As she shares her memories and grasps for more artifacts of their bond, “Marjorie” serves as a personal testament to a transformative presence in Swift’s life -- and a glimpse into her own backstory, on an album that explores so many others.

5. Willow

The lead single and opening track on Evermore returns listeners to the world that Swift constructed on Folklore with the help of Dessner: indie-folk orchestration, drum machines placed next to a glockenspiel, lingering similes in the verses (“I’m like the water when your ship rolled in that night,” Swift begins) giving way to a breathless, direct chorus (“The more that you say, the less I know / Wherever you stray, I follow”). Like the best songs on Folklore, “Willow” marries the power of Swift’s songwriting with the type of careful production details that fans can explore and eventually wrap themselves in.

4. Closure

Ever been treated like garbage by someone, then time passes, and that someone reaches back out to you to apologize and absolve themselves from blame? On “Closure,” Swift rejects such false niceties, and does so over a skittering arrangement that recalls mid-period Radiohead’s occasional instrument pile-ups. Such a production would have been unthinkable on a Swift album a few years ago -- now, she blends in brass, strings and beats to her pop approach, and serves up one of Evermore’s most daring highlights.

3. Ivy

If you’re the type of listener who can cherish a lyric as folksy as “My house of stone / Your ivy grows, and now I’m covered in you,” this will surely be one of your Evermore favorites. The gorgeous“Ivy” follows a run of higher-concept songs on a track list with a simple tale of stolen romance, and Swift sells the literal affair with one of the album’s jauntiest choruses and lots of ticking instrumentation in the background (keep an ear open for Justin Vernon’s backing vocals).

2. No Body, No Crime feat. Haim

One presses play on a collaboration between Taylor Swift and Haim -- fellow album of the year Grammy nominees who have made some of the most vital pop-rock of the past decade -- with lofty expectations. “No Body, No Crime” surpasses them: a self-referential, delightfully macabre revenge tale with a quick-witted twang and a, er, killer hook, the team-up recalls a getting-even opus from another best-selling trio -- the Chicks’ classic “Goodbye Earl” -- and provides some levity on the Evermore track list. Let’s hope this precedes a Swift-Haim Grammys showcase, and then, a joint stadium tour.

1. Long Story Short

More than perhaps any other song on Evermore, “Long Story Short” crystallizes one of Swift’s greatest strengths as a songwriter: creating music that is deceptively simple but is bursting with layers and moving pieces. The indie-rock instrumentation is dense but never overcrowded, and Swift soars above the guitar chugs and string flourishes, framing her personal redemption as the reason she’s been able to better open her heart to another. You can try to unpack “Long Story Short,” or you can yelp along with that kicky post-chorus vocal hook -- there’s no wrong move here.

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