Aaron Dessner Thinks Taylor Swift’s ‘folklore’ and ‘evermore’ Album Series ‘Has Concluded’
In 2020, Taylor Swift released two surprise albums, folklore and evermore. The two albums by the singer-songwriter are considered companion albums due to similarities in storytelling, musical influences, and aesthetics.
The albums have become beloved by fans of Swift, casual listeners, and music critics. This has left fans wondering if Swift could release a follow-up album as part of an album trilogy. However, Swift’s collaborator Aaron Dessner thinks that Swift “has concluded” her “era” with folklore and evermore.
Taylor Swift followed ‘folklore’ with ‘evermore’
Swift surprised the world on July 23, 2020 when she announced that folklore would be released on July 24, 2020. She shocked fans even more on Dec. 10, 2020, when she announced evermore would be released on Dec. 11, 2020.
When announcing evermore, Swift explained that the album was a follow-up and companion album to folklore.
“To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs. 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,” Swift tweeted when she announced evermore.
Some fans began suspecting Taylor Swift would release a third album
After Swift released evermore, fans began to wonder if Swift planned to release another follow-up album. Fans then noticed that the word “woodvale” was written in the upper-right corner of the album cover of folklore. This led fans to speculate the name “woodvale” could be a hint for a third album.
In an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Swift explained the meaning behind “woodvale.”
“Basically, when I was making folklore… I was too afraid to even unveil the title of the album to even my closest teammates and management,” Swift said.
She continued, “I didn’t tell anybody the album title until right before it came out. And so I came up with a fake codename that had the same amount of letters as folklore, chose a random name… ‘woodvale.'”
Aaron Dessner does not think there will be a third album
Dessner collaborated with Swift on folklore and evermore, and his band The National was featured on evermore. After evermore was released, Dessner was interviewed by Rolling Stone. In the interview, Dessner acknowledged that Swift is most likely finished making albums like folklore and evermore, at least for the time being.
“I do think this story, this era, has concluded, and I think in such a beautiful way with these sister records — it does kind of feel like there’s closure to that,” Dessner told Rolling Stone.
While Swift might be finished with her most recent album series, Dessner says she is still collaborating with him on other projects.
“But she’s definitely been very helpful and engaged with Big Red Machine, and just in general. She feels like another incredible musician that I’ve gotten to know and am lucky to have in my life. It’s this whole community that moves forward and takes risks and, hopefully, there will be other records that appear in the future,” he said.
