Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album “The Life of a Showgirl,” hours after posting a mysterious countdown on her website.
Swift does little by accident, and fans instantly started speculating that something would be revealed on the 12th day of the month at 12:12 a.m. ET, when the countdown ran out. In classic Swift form, she did just that, revealing the album title on Travis Kelce’s podcast “New Heights Show.”
The announcement of “The Life of a Showgirl” comes just after Travis Kelce revealed on Instagram that Swift would be appearing on Wednesday as a guest on his “New Heights” podcast, hosted alongside his brother Jason. On Monday, the podcast teased that there would be a special guest, with fans sleuthing that an image with Swift’s outline suggested that she would join them on the show.
Spotify billboards started popping up in New York City and Nashville shortly after the album announcement, with a code leading to a playlist entitled “And, baby, that’s show business for you.” Though it’s a collection of Swift’s tracks, Swift fans will likely try to discern some Easter eggs from the tracklist based on prior record releases. Some have already noted that all the tracks on the playlist were produced by Max Martin and Shellback, suggesting that they could play a pivotal role in the new project.
Swift last released her studio album “The Tortured Poets Department” in April 2024, and followed up two hours later by expanding it into a double album titled “The Anthology.” It would continue to become the best-selling album of the entire year.
“The Life of a Showgirl” comes after a milestone in Swift’s career. In May, she announced that she had purchased her catalog of recordings initially released through Big Machine Records. She retained ownership from Shamrock Capital for a rumored nine-figure sum, revealing that she will be reissuing her old albums that were first sold by Big Machine against her wishes in 2019.
“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she said at the time. “All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy. I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me. … My first tattoo just might be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”
Manager Scooter Braun had purchased the catalog in 2019 from Big Machine, which Swift had left the previous year, before Shamrock acquired it in 2020. According to a source close to the sale, the rumored price range of nine figures was “highly inaccurate,” with insiders saying that it was closer to the $300 million Shamrock paid for it.
Swift attempted to reclaim ownership of her narrative by re-recording her past records. She released the first of her re-recordings — “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” — in April 2021 with more than a dozen bonus tracks. She did the same for three other albums in the years that followed.
Fans had been eagerly anticipating the release of the remaining two “Taylor’s Versions” re-recordings: “Reputation” and her self-titled debut. Just before Swift’s announcement about acquiring her catalog, fans speculated that “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” would be released around Memorial Day, though Swift said that she was still hedging around the re-recording.
“What about Rep TV? Full transparency. I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it. The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it,” she stated. “Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”
After the announcement that she’d acquired her catalog, sales of “Reputation” surged on the charts as it landed at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 with 42,000 album-equivalent units.
