Taylor Swift unleashed her new era this week when she announced her 12th studio LP, The Life of a Showgirl. Since then, there’s been a dazzling haze where it’s been all Taylor all the time — especially when the superstar was announced as a special guest on Travis and Jason Kelce’s podcast New Heights and gave a nearly two-hour interview on the show. In the episode, Swift shared a bevy of details about her new, highly-anticipated release. Here’s everything we know, so far.
The Life of a Showgirl is Out in the Fall
Fans will be able to meet The Life of a Showgirl at midnight on October 3. Of course, since it’s Swift, this release date (10/3) ties back to her personal numerology and is the closest she could get to her lucky number 13. The fall release date is also a return to form for the musician, who’s known for her autumnal releases. Swift defied her usual album release schedule with her most recent LP, Spring 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, but is ready to own autumn once more.
The Album Cover Art Is Green with Sparkly Orange Lettering
The show-stopping album cover art features Swift floating underwater in a bathtub, wearing a showgirl-inspired bodysuit made of diamonds. Many fans predicted the cover art would be orange because of the colors used for the New Heights episode, but the cover is primarily mint green with some orange lettering. It was designed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot, who previously worked with Swift on the album art for her sixth LP reputation.
“My day ends in a bathtub, not usually in a bedazzled dress… I wanted to glamorize all the aspects of how the tour felt,” the singer said on the podcast. “I wanted to have an offstage moment as the main album cover because the album isn’t really about what happened onstage, but what happened offstage.”
Swift Made The Album During the Eras Tour
As if playing a three-hour show across 149 stops around the world wasn’t impressive enough, Swift also managed to write, produce, and record The Life of a Showgirl during the massive Eras Tour. “I would be playing shows. I would do like three shows in a row. I’d have three days off,” she explained on New Heights. “I’d fly to Sweden, go back to the tour, and was actually working on this. I was physically exhausted at this point in the tour, but I was so mentally stimulated and so excited to be creating.” The bulk of the album was apparently created during the summer of 2024, while the musician was in Europe.
Max Martin and Shellback Never Go Out of Style
Swift brought back Max Martin and Shellback to produce the album. “When I was on tour in Stockholm, I had Max Martin come out to the show, and I was talking to him, and I was like, ‘I just feel like we could knock it out of the park if we went back in,’” the singer said. The Swedish duo have producer credits on some of Swift’s biggest pop hits, including “22” off Red and “Blank Space” off 1989. It’s been eight years since Swift worked with Martin and Shellback; the last time she tapped them was for key tracks on 2017’s Reputation.
“We’ve never actually made an album before where it’s just the three of us,” she said before confirming: “There’s no other collaborators. It’s just the three of us making a focused album.” For Swift’s last five albums, the musician teamed up with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner. “By the time we came back together, I feel like we had so much more dexterity to what we do,” Swift added. “It felt like all three of us in the room were carrying the same weight as creators.” She also praised the creative experience and noted that the record contains “the best ideas we’ve ever had.”
These Will Be Glitter Gel Pen Songs
Of course, with the pop masterminds Martin and Shellback onboard, The Life of a Showgirl will likely fall into Swift’s “glitter gel pen songs” category. The singer doubled down on this idea when she detailed the energy of the LP further: “This album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour, which was so exuberant and electric and vibrant. It just comes from like the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life.” Swift explained that the goal of the album was “melodies that were so infectious that you’re almost angry at it.” What exactly does that mean? Well, the superstar’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, summed that up well on the podcast: “I’ve been fortunate enough to hear every single song on here so I know they’re all 12 bangers,” he said, adding “It’s a lot more upbeat… like fun, pop excitement… It’s a complete 180 from a lot of the songs on Tortured Poets.”
Sabrina Carpenter Is the Sole Feature on the Album
According to the track list, pop princess Sabrina Carpenter is the only artist featured on The Life of a Showgirl. Carpenter will appear on the album’s title track, bringing her powerhouse vocals. The song marks Swift and Carpenter’s first official release together after the rising singer opened for Swift on the Eras Tour and appeared as a surprise guest during the New Orleans stop. Of course, Carpenter was totally thrilled about the news: “I know someone who’s freaking out and it’s me,” she wrote in her Instagram story.
The Track List Is Unhinged
The Life of a Showgirl track list is jam-packed with thrilling song titles. From the Shakespearean reference of Hamlet’s Ophelia to conjuring the greatest showgirl of all time — Elizabeth Taylor — there are lots of places the album could go. None of these song titles (“Opalite,” “Ruin the Friendship,” “Actually Romantic,” “Wi$h Li$t,” “Wood,” and “Honey”) seem all that straightforward except maybe the punctuation-specific “Cancelled!” The songwriter chose “Eldest Daughter” as the album’s Track Five, which is historically Swift’s most emotional song on each album, and the fact that it follows “Father Figure” is truly terrifying.
It’s Swift’s Shortest Track List in a While
Swift made it clear that The Life of a Showgirl is 12 songs, and 12 songs only. “There’s no other songs coming,” she said on the podcast. “With Tortured Poets Department, I was like, ‘Here’s a data dump of everything I thought and felt in two or three years. Here’s 31 songs.’ This is 12. There’s not a 13th, there’s not other ones coming,” she added. “This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time … Every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons, you know, and you couldn’t take one out, and it’d be the same album. You couldn’t add one. It’s just right.” Even after releasing the original 13-track version of Midnights, Swift immediately added a surprise album’s worth of songs. “I wanted to do an album that was so focused on quality and on the theme and everything fitting together like a perfect puzzle, that these 12 songs for my 12th album, I feel like we achieved that, and I’m really happy about that,” Swift said. Reputation was last album where the musician didn’t offer more songs than what was on the original LP.
Swift’s Storytelling Skills Remain Strong
Even though The Life of a Showgirl looks to be a big, glossy pop production, that doesn’t mean Swift’s signature songwriting is taking a backseat. “Max was like ‘I loved folkore. I loved the storytelling on folklore. I don’t want that to change just because we’re making these infectious anthems. I don’t want you to leave that behind,” she explained. Swift completely agreed. “I was like ‘I couldn’t if I tried’… I’m married to that kind of writing.” The songwriter additionally described the lyrics as “vivid, crisp, focused, and completely intentional.” During the podcast episode, Swift also said there’s a poem in the liner notes, which will hopefully mirror the thoughtful prologue the songwriter always includes for her albums.
Swift Has Wanted to Make an Album Like This for a Long Time
From the tight track list to the trusted producers, Swift is aiming to outdo herself — and it’s a goal she’s had for some time. “It’s just right,” she said on New Heights. “That focus and that kind of discipline with creating an album and keeping the bar really high is something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time. The musician doubled down on this concept again when she said, “This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time.” Even Martin and Shellback apparently have had this Swift project on their minds for a while: “All of these ideas were like, we’ve been waiting years to come back together and make this project,” the musician said. Could this mean The Life of a Showgirl is actually just the repurposed version of Swift’s lost album Karma? Well, that’s one of the long list of things we don’t know about the album. But in the words of the mastermind herself, none of it seems accidental.
