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Folklore is the eighth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was a surprise album, released on July 24, 2020, via Republic Records. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Swift canceled the concert tour for her seventh studio album Lover (2019). She conceived Folklore during quarantine as "a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness", working with producers Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff virtually; Dessner and Antonoff operated from recording studios in the Hudson Valley and New York City, respectively, while Swift recorded her vocals in a home studio at her Los Angeles residence. Departing from the mainly upbeat pop production of its predecessors, Folklore consists of mellow ballads driven by piano, guitars, strings, and muted percussions, pursuing indie folk, alternative rock, and electro-acoustic styles. Influenced by the isolation of quarantine, Swift explores themes of escapism, empathy, nostalgia and romanticism in the album, using a set of characters, fictional narratives, and story arcs, in contrast to the autobiographical tone of her previous projects. The title was inspired by the lasting legacy of folk songs, whereas its visual aesthetic reflects cottagecore. Upon release, Folklore topped the charts in various countries and is certified platinum or higher in Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, and the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was Swift's seventh number-one album and spent eight weeks atop the US Billboard 200, and it became the best-selling album of 2020. Three of its tracks, "Cardigan", "The 1", and "Exile" featuring Bon Iver, reached the top 10 on music charts in eight countries, with the former becoming Swift's sixth number-one single on the US Billboard Hot 100. Folklore received widespread critical acclaim that centered on its emotional weight, poetic lyricism, and relaxed pace. Critics found its introspective essence timely for the pandemic and regarded its sound a bold reinvention of Swift's artistry. The album was featured on numerous 2020 year-end rankings and nominated for several awards, and Rolling Stone included it in their 2023 revision of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the honor three times. She discussed Folklore and performed it live in the Disney+ concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, premiering on November 25, 2020, and released Folklore's sequel record, Evermore (2020), two weeks later. Several artists cite Folklore as a source of inspiration. Background In April 2020, Taylor Swift was set to embark on a concert tour in support of her seventh studio album Lover (2019), which was cancelled following the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 23, 2020, nine photos were uploaded to Swift's Instagram account, all without captions, forming a black and white image of the singer standing alone in a forest. Subsequently, she made another post across all her social media accounts, announcing that her eighth studio album would be released at midnight; Swift stated: "Most of the things I had planned this summer didn't end up happening, but there is something I hadn't planned on that DID happen. And that thing is my 8th studio album, Folklore". She confirmed the image as the album's cover artwork and revealed the track list. The Wall Street Journal opined that the surprise announcement "caught fans and the music business off-guard". Billboard stated that it "blindsided the pop music world", arriving as "exciting news" during lockdown. Folklore was released eleven months after Lover—the fastest turnaround for a Swift studio album at the time, beating the one year and nine months gap between Reputation (2017) and Lover. In another post, Swift announced that the music video for the track "Cardigan" would release at the same time as the album. During the YouTube premiere countdown to the "Cardigan" music video, Swift hinted that the album lyrics contained many of her signature Easter eggs: "One thing I did purposely on this album was put the Easter eggs in the lyrics, more than just the videos. I created character arcs and recurring themes that map out who is singing about who... For example, there's a collection of three songs I refer to as the Teenage Love Triangle. These three songs explore a love triangle from all three people's perspectives at different times in their lives". She referred to the album as "wistful and full of escapism. Sad, beautiful, tragic. Like a photo album full of imagery, and all the stories behind that imagery", described "Cardigan" as a song that explores "lost romance and why young love is often fixed so permanently in our memories," and pointed-out the self-written track, "My Tears Ricochet", as the first song she wrote for the album. Uproxx narrated, "on Thursday night, that hand-drawn 'T' and 'S' could be seen up and down the timeline. Music fans and critics across genres unveiled hot takes, quoted lyrics like Myspace teens writing on the back of textbooks or crafting the perfect AIM away message, and debated Folklore's place in the unimpeachable Taylor Swift canon." Conception Swift did not expect to create an album in early 2020. After the cancellation of Lover Fest, Swift quarantined herself, during which she watched numerous films and shows, such as Rear Window (1954), L.A. Confidential (1997), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Jane Eyre (2011), Marriage Story (2019), and The Last Dance (2020), and read more books than she ever did, books that "dealt with times past, a world that doesn't exist anymore", such as Rebecca (1938) by Daphne du Maurier. The fictions inspired Swift to venture beyond her usual autobiographical style of songwriting, and experiment with different narrative standpoints. In isolation during the lockdown, she let her imagination "run wild", ensuing in a set of imageries and visuals that consequently became Folklore. Some of the imageries the singer developed include: "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 apologize. 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". Swift "poured all of [her] whims, dreams, fears, and musings" into the songs, and reached out to her "musical heroes" to collaborate with. She initially planned to release Folklore in early 2021, but it "ended up being done" sooner, and released in July 2020 without giving it second thoughts. She approached the album's creation without subjecting herself to any rules, and explained that she "used to put all these parameters on [herself], like, "How will.... Discover the Jess Connolly Hayley Morgan popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jess Connolly Hayley Morgan books.