Taylor Swift .. A ‘Folklore’ Surprise

Taylor Swift has announced the surprise release of her eighth album, Folklore. The Grammy-winning songwriter produced and co-wrote much of the album alongside Aaron Dessner of the National. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon also appears on the record, alongside Taylor Swift’s regular collaborator, Jack Antonoff. It will premiere at midnight EST on 23 July.

Apparently, that thing was “Folklore,” an album Swift said she’s “poured all of [her] whims, dreams, fears and musings into.” She wrote and recorded the whole thing in isolation, she said, but she had help from cowriters like Bon Iver,

the Grammy Award-winning indie crooner, and the prolific producer and songwriter and frequent Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff.

Gone are the days of Swift’s usual album release tactics — weeks of hinting and countdown clocks, Instagram scrubbing and the theorizing among diehard fans.

Less than one year ago, Swift released “Lover” with many of those tactics, including changing her Instagram color scheme and teasing song titles in magazine covers. But the world she released “Lover” into in August 2019 looks quite different now.

“Before this year I probably would’ve overthought when to release music at the ‘perfect’ time, but the times we’re iving in keep reminding me tht nothing is guaranteed,” she wrote.

“My gut is telling me that if you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world. That side of uncertainty I can get on board with.”

Swift has stayed semi-quiet in 2020 since the release of her Netflix documentary, “Miss Americana,” in January.

On Thursday night, though, she’ll kick off the album’s release with the music video premiere of “Cardigan,” a new song Swift said also wrote and directed the music video for.

Rounding out the collection are “My Tears Ricochet,” “Mirrorball,” “Seven,” “August,” “This Is Me Trying,” “Illicit Affairs,” “Invisible String,” “Mad Woman,” “Epiphany,” “Betty,” “Peace” and “Hoax.” A bonus track called “The Lakes” will also be included on “8 deluxe CD editions and 8 deluxe vinyl editions that are available for one week” exclusively on Swift’s website.

Swift superfans were understandably shook by the surprise news, flooding social media Thursday morning with all-caps excitement, a slew of emojis and artwork from the forthcoming album, which is now available for preorder.

Here’s a sampling of the reactions.