Taylor Swift became the first woman to win the album of the year award three times, when “Folklore” triumphed in that category at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.
She already won the award for her second album, “Fearless”, in 2010, and scored again in 2016 for her fifth album, “1989”. “Folklore” is her eighth album, which means she is beating better than 0.333 to win the album of the year in her career so far.
The only previous triple winners in the category to win as artists were Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder.
Referring to how the album was made entirely in quarantine, without her even having met some of her collaborators, Swift gave a shout to duet partner Justin Vernon, saying, “I’m so happy to meet you someday.” Swift received the award with her two main co-writers and co-producers on “Folklore”, Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, with whom she was seen performing a medley of songs from the album at the beginning of the broadcast.
Swift won in the category after being excluded from nominations in the division for her two previous albums, “Reputation” and “Lover”.
When she triumphed with “Fearless”, she was the youngest artist to win the album of the year, at 20, although Billie Eilish later bought it even younger last year, when she was 18.
Although Swift enters very rarefied territory as one of only four artists to win the album of the year three times, there are several producers and engineers / mixers who have also fallen as triple winners in the category, including David Foster, Daniel Lanois, Ryan Tedder and Phil Ramone.
“Folklore” won the albums of Dua Lipa, Post Malone, Jhene Aiko, Black Pumas, Coldplay, Jacob Collier and their friends in Haim to claim the greatest honor.
It was just one of two original studio albums that Swift recorded and released under quarantine conditions in 2020 with the help of producers / co-writers Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff. The “brother” album of “Folklore”, a July 2020 release, was “Evermore”, which came out in December and gives her another chance to win the award next year, as she is in the eligibility period for 2022 Grammys.