Taylor Swift Announces 'Folklore' Sister Album, 'Evermore,' Releasing on Friday

After surprising fans with the release of her album Folklore in July, Taylor Swift is releasing a second album in 2020, announcing on Thursday that her album Evermore will arrive on Friday, Dec. 11. "To put it plainly, we just couldn't stop writing songs," Swift wrote on Instagram. "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," she 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. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

Evermore includes collaborations with Bon Iver, who appeared on Folklore, and The National, whose Aaron Dessner also worked on Folklore with Swift. Swift's friends Haim will also make an appearance on a song, and Swift shared that William Bowery, who was credited with co-writing two songs on Folklore and was later confirmed by Swift to be her boyfriend Joe Alwyn, was also involved with Evermore. The new album includes 15 songs and the deluxe physical edition will include two bonus tracks.

In another post, Swift told fans that Evermore is her gift to them on her 31st birthday, which falls on Dec. 13. "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!"

Upon its release in July, Folklore broke multiple records and has since been nominated for multiple Grammy Awards.

"I wasn't expecting to make an album," Swift told Entertainment Weekly, sharing that she was inspired to write during quarantine after watching movies. "I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, 'Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?'"

She added: "It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience."

With the release of Evermore, Swift will also share the music video for the new song "Willow," which she will premiere after a chat with fans on YouTube. You can pre-order Evermore here.