Before a pandemic swept the globe, Taylor Swift planned on making history this summer as the first female performer to open an NFL stadium. The planned festival style Loverfest concert tour was intended to be a few stops in large stadiums, celebrating summer, sunsets, and the outdoors. Instead, she found herself, like most of us, stuck at home with all her summer plans canceled.

So instead, she wrote and recorded a whole new album. A complete departure from her last seven efforts, her eighth album Folklore is a low key, subdued offering. It’s the kind of album a pop star can write when it doesn’t need to support a concert tour and a huge marketing push.

Folklore was released midsummer, with no big announcement or definitive lead single. I’ve quickly fallen in love with it from beginning to end. No booming summer hits or flashy production here, just well written, rustic flavored, downbeat songs to listen to while summer slowly fades to autumn.