MUSIC

Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” following a mysterious countdown on her website. The news was revealed on the “New Heights Show” podcast hosted by her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his brother, Jason.

The countdown, which fans speculated would lead to an announcement at 12:12 a.m. ET on the 12th day of the month, ended with Swift making the revelation on the podcast. The announcement follows a teaser from the podcast on Monday, which featured a silhouette of Swift, leading to fan speculation that she would be a guest.

Swift’s last studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” was released in April 2024 and was followed two hours later by a double album titled “The Anthology.” It went on to become the best-selling album of the year.

The news of “The Life of a Showgirl” comes just after a major career milestone for Swift. In May, she announced that she had acquired her catalog of recordings originally released through Big Machine Records from Shamrock Capital. This move was the culmination of a years-long effort by Swift to regain ownership of her masters.

In the wake of her catalog acquisition, Swift revealed that she was still hedging around re-recording her 2017 album, “Reputation.” She stated that she had not even re-recorded a quarter of it, as the album was so specific to a difficult time in her life that she kept hitting a stopping point.

Following the announcement of “The Life of a Showgirl,” Spotify billboards appeared in New York City and Nashville with a code that led to a playlist of Swift’s songs titled “And, baby, that’s show business for you.” Fans are already searching for “Easter eggs” within the tracklist, noting that all the songs were produced by Max Martin and Shellback, hinting at their potential involvement in the new project.