Taylor Swift Releases Folklore Film on Disney +

Earlier in the year, Taylor Swift surprised fans with an unexpected and beautiful new album. With her previous album, “Lover” having only just been released in August 2019, the world was not prepared to see another Swift studio album so quickly, yet it provided a perfect antidote for the pandemic blues of many and was a product of Swift’s own isolation after facing many cancelled shows due to Coronavirus. In yet another surprise announcement, Swift revealed the new film ‘Folklore’: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, premiering exclusively on Disney Plus.

Swift announced the release of the film on Twitter, writing: ‘Well it’s 11/24 and 24-11=13 so I’ve got an announcement 🤓 You haven’t seen this film before ✨ folklore: the long pond studio sessions will be out tonight at midnight PST on @DisneyPlus! #folkloreOnDisneyPlus.’

Accompanied by a trailer which features clips of the studio and recording sessions, spanning through interview snippets, intimate recordings of the albums songs and Taylor’s voice over, opening with: ‘there’s something about the complete and total uncertainty of life. If we are going to have to recalibrate everything, we should start with what we love the most first.’

The studio sessions were recorded in the cozy looking Long Pond Studio cabin, but interlaid with behind the scenes interviews which should reveal the secrets and stories behind the song and the album. In an interview clip, featured on the trailer, Swift says: ‘It’s an album that allows you to feel your feelings and it’s a product of isolation. This could have been a time where I absolutely lost my mind, and instead I think, you know, this album was a real flotation device for both of us.’ Adding later, that she was glad they recorded the album because it turned out that everyone ‘needed a good cry as well as us.’

Variety wrote: ‘Swift and her collaborators on the album — The National’s Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff (Bleachers) and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) — secretly recorded it earlier this year, thousands of miles apart from each other. They had never been in the same room together until they filmed the “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions” special. In September 2020, Swift and the rest of the album’s personnel assembled for the first time together at Long Pond Studio in upstate New York (where The National recorded “Sleep Well Beast”) to perform all 17 songs on the album in order. The film will premiere exclusively on Disney Plus on Wednesday, Nov. 25, at 12:01 a.m. PT.’

Although stadiums and performance venues are still closed in many places across the world, Taylor perceptively brought the album to fans in the comfort of their living room. In a cosy setting, in a secluded cabin with conversations around a firepit, Folklore: Long Pond Studio Sessions delivers a film borne out of isolation yet reflecting isolation in a warm yet poignant way. In a review from The Guardian: ‘the image presented is of both an artist at ease and – with little to prove – at the peak of her power. Swift’s songwriting bona fides have never been in question, but her eighth album presents this side of her in its purest form, not only in the speed of its creation but the absence of fanfare. Folklore reveals the potency of Swift’s songwriting: almost uncomfortably intimate, with an emotional tenor – wistfulness, bitterness, grief and love – that takes hold like quicksand. It is testament to her grasp on the shifting emotional tenor of the pandemic, underscored by her song-by-song commentary in the film.’

In the film, secrets of the album have apparently been revealed and fans have already been particularly excited to confirm suspicions that the mysterious credited co-writer ‘William Bowery’ was indeed Swift’s boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn. Overall, the album Folklore has been well received, NME reported: ‘Folklore’ became the first million-selling album of 2020. The album returned to the top of the Billboard chart at the end of October, selling 57,000 copies and taking its total number sold to 1.038million. Folklore’ becomes the ninth Taylor Swift album to reach a million sales, with her eight studio albums plus Christmas album ‘The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection’ also reaching the milestone. It follows ‘Lover’, Swift’s seventh album from 2019, picking up the accolade of the only album of last year to sell a million copies.’

However, as the film is exclusively showing on Disney plus, fans will need to subscribe to the streaming channel currently priced at $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year, but will be able to access the channels other content.