5 days ago
Taylor Swift reveals everything we need to know about her new album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl'
Taylor Swift fans rejoice: We're getting a bedazzling pop album full of 'f***ing bangers'.
The US megastar shed all the details about her forthcoming twelfth release, titled The Life of a Showgirl, on boyfriend Travis Kelce's New Heights podcast, revealing the album will officially lob on October 3.
With an array of flashy, sexy imagery to accompany the release, Swift confirmed she was making a departure from her recent 'esoteric' music and venturing into her reinvigorated pop theatre era.
Despite what the title of the album suggests, Swift said the music was actually less about being onstage, but a much more personal journey entirely reflective of her life 'behind the curtain' while embarking on the globetrotting Eras Tour.
'This [album cover] represents the end of my night,' Swift said.
She continued, 'So when I'm on tour, I have the same day every single day. And my day ends with me in a bathtub, not in a bedazzled dress, but you know, we try to keep it decent.
'I wanted to glamorise all the different aspects of how that tour felt, and how it felt to be at the end of the night when all this has gone down, you won't be able to get to bed until 4am, you had to jump through 50 million hoops in this obstacle course that is your show, but you did it.
'And the reason I wanted to have an offstage moment as the main album cover is because it's not what happened to me onstage, it's about what I was going through offstage. This to me tells more of what the actual contents, lyrically, of the album are, which is the life of a showgirl.'
Swift immediately ruled out any surprise songs beyond what's on the track list, saying there would only be 12 as part of the record.
She co-produced the album with previous collaborators Max Martin and Shellback, who worked alongside Swift on a string of her earlier albums including Red and 1989.
In a nutshell, Swift said, 'This is the record I've been wanting to make for a very long time. I love it that much.'
'It feels energetically how my life has felt, and 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,' she said.
'My mentor Max Martin, Shellback and I … We've never made an album before where it's just the three of us. [The goal was to] make a focused album. It felt like catching lightning in a bottle.'
Travis' brother Jason Kelce, who conducted the almost two-hour long podcast interview, yelped, 'F***ing bangers.'
Nodding, Swift said, 'As you said, bangers.'
She continued, 'We knew we had to bring the best ideas we've ever had. And I know how much pressure that puts on it, but I love it that much. I'm so proud of it. It just comes from that most infectiously, joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life, and that effervescence has come through.'
Swift said the entire album was produced in Sweden, and while there was an emphasis on developing catchy melodies, all parties agreed the storytelling needed to be on par with that of her Grammy winning alt-folk album, folklore.
'My main goals were melodies that were so infectious, you're almost angry at it, and lyrics that are just as vivid but crisp and focused and completely intentional,' she said.
'We had a conversation about how Max was like, 'I loved folklore, I loved the storytelling, I don't want that to change just because we're making these infectious anthems.'
'And I was like, 'I couldn't if I tried. I'm married to that writing.''
Swift's last album released in April 2024, The Tortured Poet's Department, featured a whopping 31 songs.
Where that was a 'data dump' of her feelings, Swift said she wanted The Life of a Showgirl to be laser-focused.
'I tend to love to write lots and lots of music, so it's a temptation to release lots of music,' she said.
'I wanted to do an album that was so focused on quality, and the theme and everything fitting together like a perfect puzzle. I feel like we achieved that.
'There's no other songs coming. There's twelve. Not thirteen. Twelve.
'Every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons. And you couldn't take one out and it be the same album. It's just right. And that focus and discipline is something I've been wanting to do for a long time.'
The song titles on The Life of a Showgirl are as follows:
1. The Fate of Ophelia
2. Elizabeth Taylor
3. Opalite
4. Father Figure
5. Eldest Daughter
6. Ruin the Friendship
7. Actually Romantic
8. Wi$h Li$t
9. Wood
10. Cancelled!
11. Honey
