NEWS
Taylor Swift
Beth GarrabrantOne year after its release, Taylor Swift's fans are taking a moment to reflect on the life-changing impact of the superstar singer's eighth album, Folklore.
Released on July 24, 2020, Folklore represented a surprise pivot towards indie-folk that proved a critical and commercial blockbuster for Swift, earning the album of the year Grammy and topping the Billboard 200 albums chart for eight nonconsecutive weeks.
On Saturday (July 24), Swifties celebrated the first anniversary of Folklore on social media with congratulatory messages alongside selfies with their favorite white cardigan, a nod to one of the album's hit songs, and inspiring words on how the release helped them through the challenging COVID-19 pandemic.
"Happy one year to the album that is everything and quite literally saved so many of us during the chaos an uncertainty of last year," one fan tweeted. "Love you and your team of folklorians so incredibly much."
Another Swiftie wrote, "folklore feels like a warm blanket on a cold day, or a warm hug on an especially rough day. Thank you for creating this beautiful album that has saved my life and has made me feel understood. Please never stop making music. I love you."
Swift herself celebrated Folklore's first birthday by gifting fans an original version of the album’s bonus track, “The Lakes.”
“It’s been 1 year since we escaped the real world together and imagined ourselves someplace simpler," the 31-year-old singer tweeted on Saturday. "With tall trees & salt air. Where you can wear lace nightgowns that make you look like a Victorian ghost & no one will side eye you cause no one is around."
She added, "To say thank you for all you have done to make this album what it was," she continued, "I wanted to give you the original version of The Lakes. Happy 1 year anniversary to Rebekah, Betty, Inez, James, Augustine and the stories we all created around them. Happy Anniversary, folklore."
In this week’s Billboard digital cover story, Jack Antonoff, who co-wrote and co-produced “The Lakes” with Swift, first revealed that the bonus song originally existed in a “big orchestral version,” before Swift decided to strip it down. In the days following the publishing of the interview, Swift fans on social media asked to hear the original version of the track.
“On one of my favorite songs on [Swift’s] Folklore, ‘The Lakes,’ there was this big orchestral version, and Taylor was like, ‘Eh, make it small,’” Antonoff says in the digital cover story. “I had gotten lost in the string arrangements and all this stuff, and I took everything out. I was just like, ‘Oh, my God!’ We were not together because that record was made [remotely], but I remember being in the studio alone like, ‘Holy s--t, this is so perfect.’”
See more tweets celebrating the first anniversary of Folklore below.
NEWS
Music photographer Jill Furmanovsky said she wasn’t taken aback by the overwhelming excitement surrounding the Oasis reunion tour.
The photographer has been capturing the Wonderwall hitmakers for more than thirty years and shared that the Oasis Live '25 Tour, which brought Noel and Liam Gallagher back on stage together for the first time in 16 years, worked so well because the concerts have always been “about the audience”.
Jill, who first crossed paths with Oasis at one of their early shows at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1994, explained to NME: “It didn’t catch us off guard, because Oasis have always been about the crowd. Always. There was never much to shoot on stage.
“Even at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, the performance itself was simple, but the people in the crowd knew every word and were completely swept up in it.
“And that hasn’t really changed over time. They just bring out that songbook and deliver it. Liam is still magnetic and captivating, even when he keeps it minimal. It remains incredibly powerful. That’s the essence of their show.”
Furmanovsky, who has photographed icons like Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin over the course of her fifty-year career, added: “What they’ve done with this new tour, the production, and the visuals… it’s something special.
“The mix of generations in the crowd is also striking. I went with my 13-year-old granddaughter, and there were plenty of kids her age singing along word for word. It’s incredible.
“‘Biblical’ is the term people throw around. It sounds almost silly, but when two brothers who’ve been at odds for years come together again, there really is something biblical about that alone. Combine it with what they’re putting on stage… it’s unlike anything else.”
Jill’s latest book Trying To Find A Way Out Of Nowhere reflects her years documenting Oasis, and she shared that no current act matches what the Supersonic band represents. She was also able to photograph them once again at one of their massive Wembley Stadium shows during the reunion tour.
She said: “There aren’t many artists today who can step into the space Oasis occupies and actually live up to it.
“We’re in a different time now, a kind of in-between phase. It feels like the closing of a rock ‘n’ roll chapter. That doesn’t mean talent or creativity is gone. It’s like with painting — we still have great impressionists, but we’re no longer living in the impressionist era.”
