Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour - Melbourne, Australia

Photo: Graham Denholm/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

A new era is dawning. On Tuesday, Taylor Swift revealed that she’s coming out with her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. This will be her first album since wrapping up the Eras Tour and buying back her masters, and naturally, Swifties are frantically speculating about what she’s cooking up next. Here’s everything we know so far.

Like this! Swift dropped the art Wednesday night.

Visually, the album seems to be leaning into a sparkly mint green and orange aesthetic with some real classic Vegas showgirl vibes – think feathers, rhinestones, and fishnets. She is a theatre girl, after all.

October 3, baby!

We do! Swift released the tracklist along with the album art on Wednesday night.

There are 12 songs on the album, as anyone familiar with Swift’s penchant for numerology is probably unsurprised by. Here are the titles:

  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
  12. The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter)

Only Taylor could get her fans to listen to a football podcast. In an episode Wednesday night, Swift made her first-ever appearance on her boyfriend’s podcast, New Heights, and used a teaser for the episode to announce the big news. In a clip from the podcast, Swift pulled a copy of the record — cover blurred — out of a briefcase. “This is my brand-new album, The Life of a Showgirl,” Swift told Travis and Jason Kelce. “T.S. 12!!!” Travis yelled while Jason wordlessly screamed. Same.

Though the podcast episode didn’t come out ’til Wednesday at 7 p.m., the teaser dropped — when else? — at 12:12 a.m. on August 12.

Fans had been anticipating some sort of announcement since Monday morning, when Taylor Nation, the singer’s marketing team, posted an Instagram carousel of pics of Swift wearing orange on the Eras Tour. “Thinking about when she said ‘See you next era…’” the post’s caption read. Around the same time, the Kelce brothers announced there would be a “VERY special guest” on their next podcast episode and included a silhouette of the mystery guest — which fans quickly matched to a photo of Swift. Later that night, Swift teased the clip with a countdown clock on her website that sent Swifties into a full-on frenzy.

It sounds like we’re getting a grand return to shimmery, poppy, glitter-gel-pen form for Swift. On New Heights, Swift said the album focuses on her life during the Eras Tour, and she said we can expect “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.”

Travis said he’s already heard the album, and said all the songs are “bangers.” Apparently it’s all “upbeat, fun pop excitement” – a “complete 180” from The Tortured Poets Department, as he put it. “You are going to move. This album is going to make you dance,” he added.

Max Martin and Shellback are back! The Swedish producers haven’t worked with Swift since 2017’s Reputation, and the two produced some of her biggest, poppiest hits, including “Blank Space” and “Delicate.”

Notably, it’s the first album not produced by her frequent collaborator, Jack Antonoff, in over a decade.

Fans had speculated Martin and Shellback were involved in the album since Swift released a Spotify playlist titled “And, baby, that’s show business for you.” The playlist includes 22 of her songs (get it?), all of which are from 1989, Red, and Reputation — and all of which were produced by Max Martin and Shellback.

During the Eras Tour, if you can believe it. Swift told the Kelce brothers she worked on the album while she was on tour in Europe, and would fly to Sweden between tour dates to work with Martin and Shellback. Based on her tour dates, that would mean she made it sometime last spring or summer.

“I was physically exhausted at this point in the tour, but I was so mentally stimulated and so excited to be creating,” Swift said of the process.

Apparently not. On New Heights, Swift said not to expect any additional songs.

“This is 12,” she said. “There’s not a 13th. There’s not other ones coming.”

But of course. Towards the end of the Eras Tour, an orange door would appear on stage during the final song, “Karma.” Turns out, none of it was accidental. “That actually was an Easter egg!” she said on New Heights. Never change, Taylor.

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