Taylor Swift Evermore

Surprise-dropping a career-redefining album in the midst of a paralyzing global pandemic is an admirable flex; doing it again barely five months later is a display of confidence and concentration so audacious that you’re within your rights to feel personally chastised. Like folklore, evermore is a team-up with Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, and Justin Vernon, making the most of cozy home-studio vibes for more bare-bones arrangements and bared-soul lyrics, casually intimate and narratively rich.

Appearing a mere five months after Folklore, Evermore is a direct sequel to its predecessor, recorded in a similar fashion during the 2020 quarantine, containing a similar supporting cast and exploring a familiar set of emotions. Evermore isn't quite a "Folklore, Vol. 2," though. Where Folklore was a controlled departure, an album where every element fell into exact place, Taylor Swift is quite a bit looser on Evermore, playing with narratives and texture, feeling so comfortable in her moody surroundings that she throws around profanities without hesitation…

Midnights is the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on October 21, 2022, via Republic Records. Announced at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, the album marks Swift's first body of new work since her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore. Midnights is a concept album about nocturnal contemplation, written and produced by Swift with Jack Antonoff as the main collaborator. The album was inspired by "thirteen sleepless nights" throughout Swift's life. She adopted a glamorous visual aesthetic for the album, drawing from the 1970s fashion and art. Eschewing the alternative folk sound of Folklore and Evermore, Swift experimented with electronica, synth-pop, dream pop and chill-out music styles in Midnights, employing subtle grooves, vintage synthesizers, drum machine and hip hop rhythms.

For the most part, Taylor Swift’s various eras have been distinctive and well-defined. There were her country beginnings, a crossover to both sharp pop and global superstardom, the era of cozy indie folk she briefly detoured into with the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, and a deeper embrace of throwback synth pop on 2022’s Midnights, to name just a few. The era presented in Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, is harder to pin down. Produced with long-time collaborators Jack Antonoff and the National's Aaron Dessner, the album pulls from Swift’s previous phases rather than introducing any new overarching identity or sound, with songs loosely connected by scenes from a bitter, messy breakup.

For the most part, Taylor Swift’s various eras have been distinctive and well-defined. There were her country beginnings, a crossover to both sharp pop and global superstardom, the era of cozy indie folk she briefly detoured into with the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, and a deeper embrace of throwback synth pop on 2022’s Midnights, to name just a few. The era presented in Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, is harder to pin down. Produced with long-time collaborators Jack Antonoff and the National's Aaron Dessner, the album pulls from Swift’s previous phases rather than introducing any new overarching identity or sound, with songs loosely connected by scenes from a bitter, messy breakup.