Taylor Swift
evermore
Release Date: Dec 11, 2020
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Republic
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Album Review: evermore by Taylor Swift
Excellent, Based on 12 Critics
Based on rating 4.5/5
If one of 2020's side effects has been uncompromising reflections on past relationships, Taylor Swift personified it on July's surprise release, 'folklore'. Presenting the otherwise pop powerhouse at her most sincere, her tales of heartbreak, personal repair and ultimate affirmation resonated across genres. 'folklore' established an unparalleled nostalgia, tapping into the blurry ground between the innocence of youth and the vital lessons learned in adulthood.
Based on rating 8/10
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.
Based on rating 8
Let it be said - there will never be another time in the next decade where one of the world's most influential musicians takes such a successful creative U-turn in the way Taylor Swift did this year. The alchemy will simply never be right. It's a thought is sad but also sort of beautiful, like all things that enter and depart from Swift's latest set of universes.
Based on rating 8/10
Despite the fact that she's re-recording her first six albums, Swift's found time to write, record, mix and master a whole new collection of tunes - and it's one of the best she's ever done. Evermore - her ninth studio album - emerges into the world only a few months after its 'sister' album Folklore, and shares many of its noteworthy traits. For one, it's another monster of a record - seventeen tracks and over an hour long - and for another, it's jam-packed with many of the same guests and highlight-reel collaborations: Bon Iver returns on the title track, as does Aaron Dessner - this time with The National in tow on the incredible "coney island".
Based on rating 4
Taylor Swift wasn't lying when she said she would never give us peace. After announcing the re-recording of her masters, nobody expected that the new music we would be hearing from Swift would be so, well, new. July's release Folklore went on to create magical worlds of whimsical stories which earned her many a Grammy nod. And it appears that the singer-songwriter didn't want to come out of the woods just yet, as she surprise-releases sister album Evermore a mere five months later.
Based on rating 8/10
When we first heard from Taylor Swift in 2020, she had created an album that would sit at the pinnacle of her career. July's surprise release Folklore wasn't a sonic pivot for pivot's sake; it was an expansion of Swift's established strengths into a new backdrop. Forget the boring arguments about Swift appropriating cottage-core and dressing up in folk sheen; the songs were beautiful and moving, and that's what mattered.
Based on rating 8/10
Taylor Swift has always been a master of reinvention, from prodigious country singer/songwriter to tabloid-friendly girl-next-door pop alchemist to global megastar. 2020 has seen her conjure not one but two unexpected and quite beautiful albums, which demonstrate why she's regarded as the most versatile songwriter of her generation. If folklore was her career zenith then it's self-described "sister album" evermore is a continuation of the same journey albeit with a few deviations.
Based on rating 7.9/10
The tale of how evermore came to be is the stuff of first loves, holiday rom-coms, Taylor Swift songs. Crafting the woodsy surprise album folklore in isolation, she felt the spark of something exciting and new, and knowing all things must pass, wanted to make it linger just a little longer. Swift started telling romantic, bittersweet stories like this as a teenage songwriter in the mid-2000s, and her first instinct was to pair her words with glossy, plainspoken country-pop.
Based on rating 7/10
Just five months after Taylor Swift surprised the world with the sudden release of her eighth studio album, folklore, she decided to celebrate her 31st birthday by releasing folklore's self-proclaimed "sister" album, evermore. As she noted on Instagram, 31 is a mirror image of her lucky number 13, neatly underscoring the way the two records intertwine, converge and subtly diverge in their themes, textures and subject matter. In our folklore review, we said that the album "feels like the culmination of a decade's worth of public growth and artistic fine-tuning" -- this rings true for evermore as well, with songs like "happiness" and "ivy" demonstrating some of Swift's most mature songwriting to date.
Opinion: Excellent
The Lowdown: Once again, Taylor Swift was lying when she told us there was "not a lot going on at the moment." Once again, she's dropped a carefully curated collection of songs unraveling both her extremely public exterior and deeply personal interior life. And once again, it's an album that acts as a remarkable exercise in lyricism. It's not just a worthy follow-up to July's folklore; it's a mirror, a companion, and a bookend.
Opinion: Excellent
Anyone who feels they made insufficient use of 2020's unexpected glut of spare time is strongly advised to avoid the prologue that Taylor Swift has written to accompany her ninth studio album. It explains that, having already produced one bestselling, critically-acclaimed album while in isolation from Covid-19 - July's Folklore - Swift and collaborators including the National's Aaron Dessner, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, songwriter Jack Antonoff and her boyfriend Joe Alwyn couldn't stop writing songs. "It feels like we were standing on the edge of the Folklorian woods and had a choice - to turn and go back or travel further into the forest of this music," she writes.
Opinion: Very Good
"I can't face reinvention," goes a line on Taylor Swift's surprise new album, evermore. "I haven't met the new me yet." It's a bold statement from an artist who, until recently, had defined herself through reinvention. Who has steered her way through blockbuster album roll-outs, carefully constructed personas, megatours, easter eggs, savvy promotional tie-ins, all of the pop star trimmings.
'evermore'
is available now