Taylor Swift announces new album 'The Life of a Showgirl' in clip from Travis Kelce's podcast — what we know
It's been a long time coming … and now we have a title for Taylor Swift's 12th album. The new work, The Life of a Showgirl, was announced on a video clip from the Wednesday, Aug. 13, episode of Travis and Jason Kelce's podcast, New Heights. It was shared on Instagram at 12:12 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Aug. 12, as a nod to Swift's 12th album.
In the clip, Swift shows the brothers a record holder, which is mint green with the initials T.S. on it.
'This is my brand-new album, The Life of a Showgirl,' the singer declares, taking out the vinyl, the cover of which is blurred. Swift's website also isn't giving away the cover art, showing only a blurred orange and green image with a lock on it. Fans are able to preorder the vinyl, cassette and CD editions of the new album on the website.
Swift has not revealed a track list or even a release date for the album. Her website states that pre-orders will ship out on Oct. 13, but that this is not an official drop date for the new work.
While fans will have to wait to learn more about The Life of a Showgirl, the music icon is hitting the ground running on the album rollout. Billboards in Nashville and New York (two places Swift has called home) direct viewers to a Spotify playlist curated by the star titled "And, baby, that's show business for you."
The playlist contains 22 songs, all of which were produced by Max Martin and Shellback, prolific pop music producers who worked with Swift on her albums Red, 1989 and Reputation. Fans speculate that the playlist could hint that Swift is reuniting with the team for The Life of a Showgirl.
Meanwhile, others are getting in on the fun surrounding Swift's upcoming release. The Empire State Building in New York City was lit up in orange in celebration.
And when you search "Taylor Swift" on Google, orange confetti rains down, and a burning heart icon pops up that says "And baby, that's show business for you."
Eagle-eyed Swifties first noticed something was in the works with the Eras Tour icon on Aug. 11, when Taylor Nation — the official platform for all things Swift — took to social media to share a post featuring 12 photos of Swift, all in the same shade of orange. The caption of the post was 'Thinking about when she said 'See you next era …'' along with a red heart surrounded by orange flames.
Meanwhile, Swift's boyfriend, Travis Kelce, announced that Swift would be the surprise guest on his and his brother Jason Kelce's New Heights podcast episode dropping on Wednesday. The brothers initially hinted that Swift could be joining them in a post Monday afternoon that featured Travis in Swift merch with a sparkly orange background, which fans caught on to immediately.
The 12th album marks Swift's first new music release since she announced that she officially owns her first six albums after a lengthy battle over her master recordings. The artist began a rerecording project after she learned in 2019 that her masters were sold to Scooter Braun against her will. Swift went on to release enormously successful 'Taylor's Versions' of her 2008 album, Fearless; her 2010 album, Speak Now; her 2012 album, Red; and her 2014 album, 1989, and now owns the original works as well.
'To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,' Swift wrote in a letter to fans posted on her website when she purchased her masters. 'All I've ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy.'
While fans were initially anticipating rerecordings of her 2006 self-titled album and her 2017 album, Reputation, to be among her next releases, Swift instead appears to be focusing on making new music.
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Taylor Swift Reunites With Max Martin, Shellback for ‘The Life of a Showgirl': ‘Catching Lightning in a Bottle'
Taylor Swift is set to bring more glitter pen songs on The Life of a Showgirl. The superstar shared that Max Martin and Shellback are back as the sole producers, along with Swift, for her 12th studio album. Swift revealed the news on Wednesday night during her episode of the New Heights podcast. On the show, the singer called Martin her 'mentor' before describing their work together. 'The three of us have made some of my favorite songs that I've ever done before,' she said, referring to some of Swift's biggest hits such as '22,' 'Shake It Off,' and 'Blank Space.' 'They're just geniuses in different avenues, in different ways,' Swift said of the producer duo. More from Rolling Stone Taylor Swift Unveils 'The Life of a Showgirl' Cover, Sabrina Carpenter Feature Taylor Swift Makes Highly-Anticipated Appearance on Travis Kelce's 'New Heights' Podcast The Kelce Brothers Frame Taylor Swift's Success in Sports Terms in Podcast Preview 'We've never actually made an album before where it's just the three of us,' she continued, 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, whom she also tapped for work on her Taylor's Version re-recording project. She touched on the intervening years where she worked on surprise album folklore and evermore, calling those projects 'esoteric.' 'I was just kind of exploring and trying to challenge myself as a writer,' she said of that time. The time apart proved to be just what Swift, Martin, and Shellback needed. 'By the time we came back together, I feel like we had so much more dexterity to what we do,' she said, adding,'It felt like all three of us in the room were carrying the same weight as creators.' The singer praised the creative experience and noted that the record contains, 'the best ideas we've ever had.' The musician shared that the production work for The Life of a Showgirl occurred on The Eras Tour while she was in Sweden. '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.' Swift's main focus of the album was how it connected to her career-spanning tour. 'I essentially said to him, 'I want to be as proud of it as an album as I am of The Eras Tour, and for the same reasons,' she said. 'And he was like, 'Do you understand what kind of pressure that is?'' For Swift's credit, she sure does. 'I know the pressure I'm putting on this record by saying that, but I don't care because I love it that much,' she said, before going on to describe the 'effervescent' energy of The Life of a Showgirl. 'It just comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked Solve the daily Crossword
Washington Post
15 minutes ago
- Washington Post
5 takeaways from Taylor Swift's unprecedented podcast interview
For two hours on Wednesday night, the world saw Taylor Swift in a way that she hasn't been seen in years — maybe ever. When she started out as a teenage country star in the early 2000s, Swift would upload MySpace videos that chronicled her adventures, post photos and comments on social media, or hop on YouTube live streams to chat with fans. But as she evolved into a global pop superstar, she slowly scaled back on revealing details about her life. In the past five years, she has only sat for a few interviews, mostly focused on her music.
Forbes
15 minutes ago
- Forbes
Hidden Door Turns Fan Worlds Into Licensed, Revenue-Sharing Story Platforms
Hidden Door, a New York–based startup founded by Hilary Mason and Matt Brandwein, is building a platform for fans to create and share interactive stories inside licensed fictional worlds. The company raised a $2 million pre-seed round in 2022 led by Makers Fund, with participation from Northzone, Betaworks, and others, including Roblox CTO Dan Sturman. Mason is a well-known figure in technology circles, having served as chief scientist at bitly before founding the machine learning research firm Fast Forward Labs, later acquired by Cloudera. She has advised companies and government agencies on AI strategy and is a frequent speaker on data science. Brandwein's background spans media, education, and games, including senior product roles at PBS and educational game studio BrainPOP. At Hidden Door, she leads technology and he oversees product, bringing together their experience in AI, storytelling, and audience engagement. Hidden Door works directly with authors, publishers, and studios to license IP, then adapts it into a structured, rules-based environment where fans can create characters and narratives that operate within the logic of the original work. 'We are very intentionally and deliberately working with the authors,' says Brandwein. 'They are licensing the works, and we are making contractual commitments to be true to the world, sharing information about how fans are playing.' Alongside licensed content, the platform also draws from public-domain works. Mason says the aim is to give fans more ways to engage while creating a new revenue stream for rights holders. 'Hidden Door is the place for our fans to play within the realms of their favorite fictional worlds,' she says. 'We're building a home for fans of books, films and shows to socialize, obsess over and remix their favorite storylines.' FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Current offerings include Pride and Prejudice and The Wizard of Oz from the public domain, as well as licensed properties like The Crow from Pressman Films, titles from romance publisher 831 Stories, and science fiction from authors Alan Dean Foster, Ramez Naam, and Charles Stross. Each world is adapted with input from the IP holder, who decides where the player enters the narrative, which characters appear, and which plotlines are emphasized. For partners, the onboarding process is quick. 'Often it's just a few hours to define the parameters of their world,' Mason says. Hidden Door also provides analytics on how fans interact with stories, giving creators insight into audience preferences. 'Authors and publishers gain a direct revenue stream while discovering exactly how fans want to engage with their worlds, all while maintaining complete creative control.' Revenue will come from a credit system modeled on Audible. Players can explore each world for free up to a set number of stories, then use credits to unlock unlimited play. Credits can also be used to access and remix other players' creations, with revenue shared back to the original IP holder. The licensing approach sets Hidden Door apart from other AI-assisted storytelling tools. The company does not train models on source material. Instead, the team builds a structured representation of each world, defining tropes, plot beats, characters, and rules. All art is hand-drawn by an in-house team led by art director Megan Carlsen. 'It is much easier to frankly just steal and not ask permission,' says Brandwein. 'We don't think that's the right way to do this. We don't think that's what the fans want. We don't think that's what the creators want.' Mason and Brandwein position Hidden Door at 'the intersection of tabletop role-playing, fanfic communities, and video games,' combining licensed storytelling with the structure and consistency fans expect from role-playing games. Early partners see the platform as a safe way to extend their stories. 'Hidden Door is a new way to expand a story without diluting it,' says Sam Pressman, CEO of Pressman Films. 'It creates a lasting dialogue between the original vision and the audience's imagination.' Erica Cerulo, co-founder of 831 Stories, calls it 'a safe, beautifully designed playground' for readers to explore alternate timelines. Foster says it is 'like having a thousand parallel universes of your story running at once, and you get to peek into every single one.' Mason describes the audience as people for whom media is part of their social life. 'Most of our players are people who talk about books and shows the way other people talk about sports,' she says. Stories and cards can be shared on Discord, Reddit, and BookTok, where fans compare plotlines and character arcs. As the platform expands its roster of worlds ahead of launch, Hidden Door is aiming to build a network where fans can interact with beloved stories and creators can see their worlds grow in the hands of engaged audiences. It's a model designed to reward both sides — and one that suggests a richer, more collaborative future for storytelling.
