Taylor Swift's surprise album announcement on Thursday also contained a mystery.
Swift revealed on social media that she plans to release her eighth studio album, "Folklore," at midnight. She also praised her four main collaborators on the project: The National's Aaron Dessner, Bon Iver, Jack Antonoff, and a mysterious person named William Bowery.
—Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 23, 2020
Dessner, Bon Iver, and Antonoff are all respected and well-known musicians. Bowery, meanwhile, doesn't seem to exist.
According to Swift, Bowery is one of her "musical heroes" and cowrote two songs on "Folklore" — but the name doesn't belong to a known artist or carry any existing songwriting credits.
Searching the name yields no results on streaming services, like Spotify and Apple Music, or music databases, like Discogs and Allmusic.
Naturally, Swift's perceptive fans took notice.
—Thierry Côté (@tcote) July 23, 2020
—Taylor Swift News | TSwiftinAsia (@TSwiftinAsia) July 23, 2020
Many fans began to speculate that "William Bowery" is a pseudonym.
Some believe it's another pen name used by Swift's brother, Austin Swift. Back in May, Swift's brother reportedly recorded a cover of "Look What You Made Me Do" under the invented band name Jack Leopards & The Dolphin Club.
The cover was produced by Antonoff, one of Swift's most frequent collaborators — as well as Nils Sjöberg, the famous pseudonym that Swift used when she secretly cowrote Calvin Harris' hit song "This is What You Came For."
—Suz (@gottenbread) July 23, 2020
Others, however, believe it's a pseudonym for Swift's boyfriend, Joe Alwyn.
The evidence that Bowery could be Alwyn is relatively thin — especially since he has no known musical interests or abilities — yet compelling all the same.
Firstly, it's unclear why Swift's brother would need multiple different pseudonyms, or any pseudonym at all. Fans know that he's a musician, and it shouldn't need to be a secret that musical siblings enjoy working together.
Alwyn, on the other hand, is extremely private. Fans still know very little about his relationship with Swift, even though they've been a couple for more than three years.
"I also was falling in love with someone who had a really wonderfully normal balanced grounded life," Swift says of the British actor in her Netflix documentary. "And we decided together that we wanted our relationship to be private."
If Swift and Alwyn wrote some songs together, it would make sense that she'd prefer to keep that information private.
—Mina Radman (@mina_radman) July 23, 2020
—Ana (@champagneseaana) July 23, 2020
—Selene | Folklore at Midnight✨ (@ButItsGolden_) July 23, 2020
One fan noticed that Swift and Alwyn have been spotted at the Bowery Hotel together in New York City, which may explain William Bowery's seemingly fake last name.
Additionally, it appears Alwyn had a great-grandfather named William Alwyn, who was a composer and music teacher.
—devon (@taylowkey13) July 23, 2020
Another fan on Tumblr noticed the same, and speculated that Swift and Alwyn could announce their engagement with a cowritten song.
Swift has yet to tacitly acknowledge these theories by liking posts on Tumblr, as is her tradition, but Insider will update this post if she does.
Representatives for Swift and Alwyn did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
- Read more:
- Taylor Swift is dropping a surprise 8th studio album, 'Folklore'
- Taylor Swift reportedly produced a cover of her own song using a Swedish pseudonym, performed by her brother using a fake band name
- Everything we know about Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn's famously private relationship
- 17 of the best and 17 of the worst Taylor Swift songs of all time
