Taylor Swift’s surprise pandemic album “Folklore” won the Grammy for Album of the Year and placed her in the holy company of Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra and Paul Simon.
This is Swift’s third career victory for the album of the year, after trophies for ‘Fearless’ in 2010 and ‘1989’ in 2016.
That means Swift is now the fourth artist – and the first woman ever – to win the best Grammy three times. Wonder reached the milestone with his victories for “Innervision” (1974), “Fulfillingness’ First Finale” (1975) and “Songs in the Key of Life” (1977).
Sinatra won for ‘Come Dance With Me!’ (1960), “September of My Years” (1966) and “A Man and His Music” (1967). And Simon is also a trio for ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ (1971, as part of Simon and Garfunkel), ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ (1976) and ‘Graceland’ (1987).
“[M]we just want to thank the fans, ‘said a surprised Swift during her speech. ‘You have met us in this imaginary world we have created, and we can not tell you how honored we are by this. Thank you very much. And thanks to the Recording Academy. We will never forget that you did it for us. ‘
Swift took part in the ceremony on Sunday with six nominations and a previous record of 10 wins and 41 nominations. ‘Folklore’ is widely regarded as a forerunner to the album of the year.
“This is her most album-y album, a creation of and lifelong in the summer of 2020, ideally alone, late at night, in a single sitting, through a sound-suppressing headphone,” Jody Rosen said in July written for The Times. “It’s par excellence social music.”
Swift’s historic trilogy ends a five-year Grammy drought for the country-pop phenomenon, of which the sixth and seventh studio albums – ‘Reputation’ and ‘Lover’ – have largely been cut by the Recording Academy. So far, Swift has not won a Grammy since her last win for the album of the year in 2016.
In addition to the album of the year, Swift was nominated at Sunday’s ceremony for pop solo performance (“Cardigan”), pop duo / group performance (“Exile”), song written for visual media (“Beautiful Ghosts”), pop vocals album (“Folklore”) and song of the year (“Cardigan”).
Times author Julissa James contributed to this report.