Taylor Swift announces new album after surprise midnight countdown

Washington Post

7 hours ago

It's 12:12 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 12: In Taylor Swift's universe, that could only mean one thing.
'So I wanted to show you something,' Swift said in a short clip posted to her Instagram account first thing Tuesday morning. In the video, she sat next to her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, as she recorded an episode of his podcast, 'New Heights,' that he hosts with his brother, former NFL star Jason Kelce. Swift unlocked a mint green briefcase with an orange 'T.S.' emblazoned on the front, and pulled out what looked like a blurred-out vinyl record.
'This is my brand new album, 'The Life of a Showgirl,'' she said.
'AHHHH!' Jason screamed.
'TS12!' Travis yelled.
The news of Swift's 12th album came after a frenzied day in the Swift fandom, which has been eagerly awaiting a full-length record ever since the megastar wrapped up the Eras Tour in December. It became the highest-grossing tour in history.
On Monday morning, increasingly loud rumors of a new Swift project exploded when 'New Heights' released a teaser that promised a 'VERY special guest' on Wednesday's upcoming episode, with a silhouette that looked like Swift against an orange background next to the Kelce brothers. Twelve minutes later, Swift's official fan account Taylor Nation posted a reference to when Swift wrote 'See you next era …' in her Eras Tour book released in November, and included 12 photos of Swift in orange outfits.
All of the 12s, combined with all of the orange, plus the fact that Wednesday will be Aug. 13 (Swift's lucky number) was simply too much for her fiercely loyal fan community to handle. Although Swifties joke about 'clowning' when they analyze Swift's every word and photo pixel for clues about her music that aren't actually clues, this time, they were correct: Swift was about to make her debut appearance on the podcast, and there was a 12th album on the way.
On Monday night, about 12 hours after those initial hints, Swift's website suddenly transformed into a sparkly orange background with a message: EXPIRES AUGUST 12 at 12:12 a.m. Eastern time. Then, the 'New Heights' team increased the hype and dropped a preview clip that showed Swift sitting down to record the podcast, wearing headphones as she and Kelce grinned at each other.
'Such a nice color on you,' Swift said of Kelce's blue sweatshirt.
'Yesss,' he replied. 'I know, it's the color of your eyes, sweetie. It's why we match so well.'
'We're about to do a f---ing podcast!' Swift said.
This marks the first time that the public has ever seen Swift and Kelce, who have been dating for about two years amid worldwide media attention, have a conversation — so there's no telling how the Swifties will handle the full episode later in the week. At exactly 12:12 a.m., the podcast published the video of Swift sharing the album announcement, and her website transformed into a page where fans can 'pre pre-order' the album, which has an unknown release date.
Until now, Swift has had a more low-key year than usual. After the Eras Tour wrapped at the end of 2024, which spanned nearly two years and grossed $2 billion from 149 sold-out stadium shows, Swift disappeared from public view for a bit. But she didn't remain completely out of the spotlight: She showed up to cheer on Kelce in several playoff games as well as the 2025 Super Bowl, which the Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 40-22. In the following months, she and Kelce were photographed out together in various places (New York City, Florida, a suburb of Cleveland not far from where Kelce grew up) and she made a surprise cameo at a concert during his annual 'Tight End University' NFL summit in Nashville to perform 'Shake It Off.'
At the end of May, Swift dropped a piece of bombshell news: After a years-long fight to own her master recordings from her first six albums (sold to manager Scooter Braun and then a private equity company), she had bought her entire musical catalogue for somewhere in the neighborhood of a reported $360 million. She revealed that her 'Taylor's Version' project — in which she rerecorded four of her first six albums to devalue Braun's purchase — was on hold for the time being, although she may rerelease her debut country album at some point if there's enough demand.
That detail sent Swifties into a frenzy, who started wondering if Swift, who doesn't like to have free time for too long, had new music in the works. Her last album, 'The Tortured Poets Department,' was released in April 2024 and was the highest-selling record of the year, earning nearly 7 million equivalent album units, according to Billboard.