Taylor Swift is dropping a new album.
A countdown appeared on Swift’s website against a glittery orange background on Aug. 11 and reached zero at 12:12 a.m. ET on Aug. 12. The website briefly crashed as fans flooded the site in anticipation. Preorders for the new album will ship out before Oct. 13, although the official release date has not yet been announced. The album artwork and tracklist are also yet to be revealed.
Swift appears set to reveal the album artwork during an upcoming episode of the podcast “New Heights,” hosted by her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and his brother, retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce.
The Life of a Showgirl will be Swift’s 12th original studio album. Her last album was The Tortured Poets Department, which was released on April 19, 2024. Swift has also released four reissues of her previous albums as part of an effort to reclaim the rights to her own work.
While many fans had been anticipating a reissue of her Reputation album from 2017, Swift bought back her masters earlier this year and said in a letter to fans that she was putting off the re-recording project for now.
The countdown for the new album followed other so-called easter eggs, hints for fans that Swift is known for dropping ahead of big announcements, including a 12-photo carousel posted by Swift’s official marketing team featuring images of Swift in orange outfits during her record-breaking Eras Tour. The post’s caption, “Thinking about when she said, ‘See you next era…’,” references the first page of Swift’s official photobook, The Eras Tour, in which a letter from Swift to fans ends with, “See you next era…”
The Kelces’ “New Heights” podcast posted a teaser on Monday for a special episode on Aug. 13, featuring a “VERY special” mystery guest, which led fans to jump on the fact that Swift’s favorite number is 13. Shortly after, the brothers revealed that the guest would be Swift in a post that read, “Taylor’s about to do a f*cking podcast!” The episode is set to release Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET.
August also appears to be a favorite month for Swift, who aside from writing a song named ‘August,’ has made four out of 13 of her album announcements (including re-recordings but excluding her first two albums, which did not have official online announcements) in August, according to Kayla Wong who runs a social media account dedicated to tracking Swift-related news through data. Most of Swift’s albums released two to three months after being announced.
Swift also shared a playlist on Spotify titled ‘And, baby, that’s show business for you’ with a cover image of her initials in orange against a light green background, the apparent colors of her new album. The playlist, which features some of her old songs mostly produced by Max Martin and Shellback, have led fans to speculate about how the new album may sound.
Some fans have also speculated that Sabrina Carpenter, who opened for Swift during some Eras Tour shows and is releasing her own album later this month, may appear on The Life of a Showgirl.
Amid all the speculation and anticipation, other Swifties are just savoring the news. “taylor swift sensed i needed a reason to live and decided to announce ts12 this week,” one fan posted on X, while another said, “almost forgot the entire point of being alive is getting to experience a new taylor swift album.”