Swifties, rejoice: Taylor Swift is coming back with her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift, who has won 14 Grammys, including an unprecedented four trophies for album of the year, announced the album early Tuesday in a teaser for a podcast episode with her boyfriend and NFL star, Travis Kelce, and his brother, Jason Kelce.
"This is my brand new album, The Life of a Showgirl," Swift said, while holding a blurred-out version of the album cover, in a clip of the New Heights podcast on Instagram. The full podcast episode is set to release at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
Swift's website said the official release date of the album would be announced later.
As she often does, Swift teased the announcement with clues throughout the day on Monday.
Taylor Nation, an official part of the star's marketing campaign, posted a photo of Swift on stage in a glittery orange outfit with the caption, "Thinking about when she said 'See you next era ...'" to Instagram. Swifties — including Zach MacIsaac from Nova Scotia — started speculating from there.
WATCH | Taylor Swift announces new album, The Life of a Showgirl:Superstar Taylor Swift on Tuesday announced her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. Swift announced the album on a podcast episode with her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother.An Instagram post from the New Heights podcast teasing a special guest with a silhouette that fans theorized was Swift, plus a countdown to 12:12 a.m. Tuesday on Swift's website, also hinted that something big was in the works.
"That had all the Swifties, like, in a haze yesterday," MacIsaac said. "We didn't know what was going on, so we were all, like, bouncing ideas off each other being like 'Is it going to be a merch drop? Is it going be a new album?"
The new album announcement dropped on Swift's website and in the form of the podcast clip at 12:12.
With so many unknowns and the full podcast episode still to come, MacIsaac says there's still lots to look forward to — like learning more about when the album might come out, how many tracks might be on it, and seeing Swift and Kelce interact in a longer form conversation.
"I have so many emotions right now I feel like a kid on Christmas," MacIsaac said.
A screengrab of Taylor Swift's website shows purchase links for vinyl, cassettes and posters of her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, with blurred cover images. (TaylorSwift.com/Reuters)Vinyl, cassette and CD versions of the album are all available for presale on Swift's website. While there's no release date for the new music yet, the site says that the physical music recordings will ship by Oct. 13.
That detail has fans like Holly Mounsteven predicting a fall release date. Details like the playlist of past Swift songs that came out shortly after the announcement, as well as use of the colour orange in the social media posts surrounding the new album, are also something fans are picking up on.
While Mounsteven said she'd love to "know everything inside Taylor Swift's brain," she admits the Easter eggs and clues are part of the excitement.
"We do anticipate some theatrics from Taylor," Mounsteven said. "If we knew everything, would it be as fun? Would it have this fandom?"
The announcement comes at a big time for the pop star, just off her wildly popular Eras Tour, and after she recently bought back the rights to some of her early catalogue.
The Eras Tour, which wrapped up in Vancouver in December, was the first music tour to surpass $1 billion US in revenue. The shows boosted local economies around the world, particularly in sectors like hotels, dining, travel and entertainment, in a phenomenon some economists termed "Swiftflation."
And in May, Swift said she had purchased her catalogue of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from its most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. American businessman Scooter Braun had purchased the music before that, and Swift has been re-recording some of her early albums since then in an effort to regain control over her own music.
Swift's last album, The Tortured Poets Department, sold 2.61 million albums and streaming units during its first week of release in the U.S., with Billboard scoring it the largest streaming week for an album ever and the largest sales week for an album on vinyl in the modern era.
Success of this kind is rare, even among stars. Stephanie Burt, a Harvard University professor who teaches a course on Swift's artistry and songwriting and who has a forthcoming book about the star, said Swift has been able to command talent and smart tactics in order to stay on top for so long.
"In some sense, talent at that level is just a mystery," Burt said. "She really just has that songwriting ability. And she's had it since around the time that she started writing ... her first album."
WATCH | Taylor Swift buys back rights to her first 6 albums:Bryan West, USA Today's Taylor Swift reporter, joins Hanomansing Tonight to discuss the significance of Taylor Swift buying her music back.Beyond that, Burt said Swift has been good at collaborating with other artists and songwriters in a way that keeps her music from sounding stale but without moving too far away from her roots. The "Easter eggs" that keep her superfans engaged are also subtle enough that casual fans still understand the songs, she said.
The mania around Swift is like the love for the Beatles, Burt said, but with her own unique differences, and without the avant-garde shift in later years.
"She's the Beatles in that she is the biggest and most influential ... musical artist," Burt said. "She's not going to make Sgt. Pepper's [Lonely Hearts Club Band]. She might make Let It Be."