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Taylor Swift announced the existence of her eighth album an uncharacteristic 17 hours prior to its release: Most of the things I had planned this summer didnt end up happening, she said among them, a headline slot at Glastonbury But there is something I hadnt planned on that DID happen. Swift only released her last album, Lover, last August. If she was surprised to have emerged from lockdown with Folklore a 16-track album largely produced (remotely) by the Nationals Aaron Dessner her fans were even more stunned by the fact that Swift would release a record with zero fanfare. Swift pioneered the art of the all-consuming album rollout. It usually starts with her sharing coded hints that her well trained fans understand immediately. Then there are teasers for lyric videos that beget actual blockbuster videos, strewn with self-mythologising references for Swifties and journalists to unpick. Its a smart promotional strategy-by-proxy for an artist who has done little press in the past five years, and a good way of making your actions seem as if they were written in the stars. There are sometimes baffling brand endorsements. The often unpopular lead single seldom sounds like the rest of the album. By the time that arrives, a weariness has descended: the sense that one of pops all-time greatest songwriters is overcompensating despite her clear talent. Recent albums, too, have been consumed with the various dramas that have plagued her since the country ingenue became a pop superstar with 2012s Red. Despite the last 12 months bringing a new, high-profile disagreement with her former label and enduring disputes with Kanye West, thankfully Folklore features none of that, beyond inadvertently arriving the same day as West said he was releasing a new album. Moreover, Swift conveys the sense that her tendency to desire the last word, in public and private, has been her undoing: I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became
