Taylor Swift said she considered pushing the release of ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ to next year due to the pandemic, in a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.

The live interview, spanning more than 50 minutes, also celebrated Swift’s crowning as Apple Music’s songwriter of the year for her work on the two surprise albums.

Swift has previously said she considers each album to be a “one-off era”, so writing two related records involved her completely rewriting her own rulebook. She also said she contemplated releasing the albums in 2021 when there would be a greater sense of normalcy.

“This is one of those things where I kind of had to just sort of throw out any playbook I had,” she told Lowe.

“In times like these when everything is uncertain and everything changes in your world, I guess I just sort of took it as an opportunity to embrace the fact that even if you think you have control in normal times that’s an illusion. If you’re making stuff, put it out if people need music and you’ve made music put it out.

“There was a time in the beginning of the process where I was like ‘I will wait till January when things are looking more normal then I will put out ‘folklore’, and I was like that’s my old brain thinking that there’s any way that I can control this.”

The singer also said she, like many artists, certainly felt the pressure of having to release a better record than her previous work.

“What happens to you as your career builds… is that if you’ve accomplished a thing in the past, all of a sudden you’re expected to accomplish that thing plus another new thing plus this other thing over here,” she said.

“I had felt at times – when I felt a lot of pressure – like I was doing some sort of obstacle course, and that’s not how you should feel when you’re creating.”

Watch the full interview below:

NME gave ‘Evermore’ a five-star review when it arrived earlier this month, praising Swift for “[pushing] the boundaries of her indie reinvention, adding a bit of ‘1989’-era gloss to produce a beacon of hope”.

When ‘Folklore’ was released in July, NME gave the album four stars, welcoming the singer’s initial “indie-folk makeover”.