Taylor Swift announces 12th studio album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl’

Taylor Swift performs at Wembley Stadium as part of her Eras Tour June 21, 2024, in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)

NEW YORK — Look what you made her do -- Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”

Swift announced the album on her website shortly after a countdown timer expired at 12:12 a.m. Tuesday. No release date was announced, but her site said vinyl editions of the album would ship before Oct. 13.

Fans have long theorized that Swift’s 12th album would soon arrive. On Monday, Taylor Nation -- an official branch of the pop superstar’s marketing team -- posted a TikTok slideshow of 12 images with the caption “Thinking about when she said ‘See you next era.’” Swift is seen wearing orange in every image.

A special limited vinyl edition of the album will be released in “Portofino orange glitter,” according to a preorder page on her site. A special cassette edition is also available for preorder.

Sensing a pattern, eagle-eyed fans noticed that 12 minutes before Monday’s Taylor Nation post, the popular “New Heights” podcast posted a tease for Wednesday. The show, hosted by Swift’s boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce alongside his brother, former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, posted an orange image on social media with a mysterious silhouette that many believed to be Swift.

The podcast announced early Tuesday that Swift would indeed appear on “New Heights” and a teaser video posted about her appearance showed her pulling the album from a briefcase. The actual album artwork, just as it is on her website, is blurred.

How to watch Taylor Swift on the “New Heights” podcast

Swift’s episode of the “New Heights” podcast will premiere at 7 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. It will be available to stream in full on YouTube. Fans who’d prefer to listen to the show, instead, can do so via most podcast streaming platforms: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify and Wondery among them.

Episodes typically run around one hour to two in duration.

The road to “The Life of a Showgirl”

“The Life of a Showgirl” follows last year’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” announced during the 2024 Grammys and released during her record-breaking tour, which raked in over US$2.2 billion across two years and five continents, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time.

The album is also Swift’s first release since she regained control over her entire body of work. In May, the pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings -- originally released through Big Machine Records -- from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount paid.

In recent years, Swift had been re-recording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music. The project was instigated by music executive Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her early catalog. Previous “Taylor’s Version” releases have been more than conventional re-recordings, arriving with new “from the vault” music, Easter eggs and visuals that deepen understanding of her work.

So far, there have been four re-recorded albums, beginning with “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in 2021. All four have been massive commercial and cultural successes, each debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Swift’s last re-recording, “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” arrived in October 2023, just four months after the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).” That was the same year Swift claimed the record for the woman with the most No. 1 albums in history.

Maria Sherman, The Associated Press