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When Beyoncé delighted fans in 2013 with the surprise drop of her self-titled album, she forever changed the way artists release music. Drake followed her footsteps in 2015, releasing his album, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, on a Friday, just like Bey. That same year, it became the industry standard, with musicians leaving Tuesday behind and coming together to release new singles, mixtapes, and albums on Fridays.
Now, every Friday is a celebration for music fans, with hours of new music coming out every week, just in time for the weekend. Even though Saturday and Sunday don’t really mean much during the current pandemic, we’ll always have the audio comfort we know and love from some of our favorite artists to get us through quarantine.
One of the biggest releases this week is courtesy of Taylor Swift , who decided to give fans two albums in 2020. On Thursday, the star announced she would be releasing Evermore, calling it the “sister record” to July’s release, Folklore. Less than 24 hours, the album is here, and fans couldn’t be more excited.
Following the record’s release, she informed fans of the creative process that led to her producing another album so quickly.
“I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released,” the singer said. “There was something different with Folklore . In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them.”
Kid Cudi also released an album on Friday, dropping the third installment of his Man On the Moon series, a follow-up to 2010’s Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. This marks the first time fans have gotten solo music from Cudi since 2016, thought he collaborated with Kanye West on their project Kids See Ghosts in 2018 and with Travis Scott on The Scotts earlier this year.
The rapper spoke about how he decided it was time to create another addition to the beloved series, saying, “I was already in a really good place working on Intergalactic, going crazy on the Scotts s**t, had that in the chamber. But then I was making something else that didn‘t fit those two projects.”
“And I think after two or three songs, I was like, ‘Whoa, this s**t really feels like a Man on the Moon,” he continued. “Like, this is what the universe is telling me to make here. I think after two or three songs, I was like, ’This is it.’ I made ’Tequila Shots,’ ’Another Day,’ and ’She Knows This,’ I believe.... And that’s why you hear ’Tequila Shots’ and it sounds like such an introduction. It sounds like you pick right back up where we left off 10 years ago.”
More music to drop this week includes a collaboration from Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys titled, “Matches,” Jack Harlow’s highly-anticipated album, That‘s What They All Say, and Daddy Yankee and Marc Anthony came together for their song, “De Vuelta Pa‘ La Vuelta.”