Taylor Swift announces 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl”

Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” Swift put out the word 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 be released soon.

On Monday, Taylor Nation — an official branch of the pop superstar’s marketing team — posted a TikTok slide show 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 pre-order page on her site. The vinyl version of the album is available for pre-order on the site for $29.99. The cassette version is going for $19.99 and a CD with a poster of Swift is priced at $12.99. 

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

Swift also announced early Tuesday that she would appear on the podcast 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.

“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 $2.2 billion across two years and five continents, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time. She’s taken home 14 Grammys including an unheard-of four for album of the year.

The album is also her first release since Swift regained control over her entire body of work. In May, she 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 didn’t disclose the purchase price.

In recent years, Swift has been rerecording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music. The project was instigated by Hybe America CEO Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her early catalog and represents Swift’s effort to control her own songs and how they’re used.

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

Swift’s last rerecording, “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.