Taylor Swift has announced that she'll be releasing her ninth album, Evermore, at midnight ET. The news comes just five months after she surprise-dropped her critically acclaimed eighth album, Folklore.
As is tradition, Taylor signalled to fans that new music was on its way by uploading a series of Instagram photos before dropping the album's cover and tracklist.
"I'm elated to tell you that my 9th studio album, and Folklore's sister record is out tonight," Taylor wrote. "It's called Evermore."
"To put it plainly, we just couldn't stop writing songs," she went on. "To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in."
"I've never done this before," Taylor continued. "In the past I've always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with Folklore."
Taylor then revealed that she'd continued to work with her Folklore collaborators — Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, Justin Vernon, and William Bowery, aka boyfriend Joe Alwyn — on this record.
And in a follow-up post, Taylor also explained the significance of releasing the record at this moment in time.
"Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it's my lucky number backwards, which is why I wanted to surprise you with this now," she wrote. "You’ve all been so caring, supportive and thoughtful on my birthdays and so this time I thought I would give you something!"
And not content with freaking us out with another surprise announcement just months after she blessed us with Folklore, Taylor also released Evermore's tracklist. There'll be 15 songs, including collaborations with Haim, the National, and Bon Iver.
Taylor rounded off the surprise by also revealing that the music video for the lead single, "Willow", will be dropping tonight as well.
Roll on, midnight!
