Taylor Swift has announced her upcoming 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, officially entering her next musical era.
The singer made the announcement in a teaser for the New Heights podcast. In the short clip, Swift sits next to her boyfriend and podcast host Travis Kelce as she opens up a mint green case with her initials on it in orange lettering. “I wanted to show you something,” she says to his brother, Jason Kelce. “This is my brand new album, The Life of a Showgirl.” The album cover is blurred out in the clip and is set to be unveiled during the actual podcast.
While an official release date for the album hasn’t been announced, signs point to a fall release date. On Swift’s website, fans pre-ordering the vinyl are assured it will “ship before 10/13/25,” while noting, “this is not the release date.”
Earlier on Monday night, a countdown appeared on her official website, with the ticker scheduled to expire at 12:12 p.m. ET. When the time reached, the site temporarily crashed — no doubt due to an overwhelming number of fans flooding the page.
Both the New Heights podcast and Taylor Nation hinted at the announcement with cryptic social media posts on Monday morning, sending fans into an investigative frenzy. The sports-focused podcast alluded to the singer’s appearance on Wednesday’s episode with a thumbnail that was littered with Easter Eggs — from the sparkly, orange background to Jason’s Midnights T-shirt, and of course, a silhouette that could only be the pop star herself. Hours before her album announcement, Swift confirmed her appearance on the Kelce brothers’ podcast.
The singer-songwriter’s previous release was 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department. The news was unexpected as Swift announced the project at the 2024 Grammy Awards while she accepted the award for Best Pop Vocal Album. Swift kept the surprises coming when she revealed the project was a double album and unveiled The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology a few hours after the original was released. The new music drop coincided with the final legs of Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour.
Swift continues to be unstoppable. Earlier this year, she celebrated a major feat when she bought back the master recordings for her first six albums and gained control of her entire music catalog. “All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me,” the singer wrote in a letter on her website at the time. The news was especially monumental given the six-year battle over her masters, which led her to launch her highly successful re-recording endeavor and release Taylor’s Versions of Fearless, Red, Speak Now, and 1989.
Since 2020, Swift has released four full-length projects of new songs and four re-recorded albums. The singer-songwriter has addressed her creative output in recent years. “This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been,” the singer told Time in 2023. During her tour stop in Tokyo, the singer echoed that sentiment in a speech before “Champagne Problems”: “Everyone’s like, ‘Why do you make so many albums?’ Man, because I love it! I love it so much!”
