Taylor Swift announces 12th studio album, 'The Life of a Showgirl'
[August 12, 2025]
By MARIA SHERMAN
NEW YORK (AP) — Look what you made her do — Taylor Swift has announced
her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”
Swift announced the album on her website shortly after a countdown timer
expired at 12:12 a.m. Tuesday. No release date was announced, but her
site said vinyl editions of the album would ship before Oct. 13.
Fans have long theorized that Swift's 12th album would soon arrive. On
Monday, Taylor Nation — an official branch of the pop superstar’s
marketing team — posted a TikTok slide show of 12 images with the
caption “Thinking about when she said 'See you next era…'” Swift is seen
wearing orange in every image.
A special limited vinyl edition of the album will be released in
“Portofino orange glitter," according to a pre-order page on her site. A
special cassette edition is also available for pre-order.
Sensing a pattern, eagle-eyed fans noticed that 12 minutes earlier, the
popular “New Heights” podcast posted a tease for Wednesday. The show,
hosted by Swift's boyfriend and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce alongside
his brother, former Eagles center Jason Kelce, posted an orange image on
social media with a mysterious silhouette, many believing to be Swift.
The podcast announced early early Tuesday that Swift would would appear
on “New Heights” and a teaser video posted about her appearance showed
her pulling the album from a briefcase. The actual album artwork, just
as it is on her website, is blurred.
“The Life of a Showgirl” follows last year’s “The Tortured Poets
Department,” announced during the 2024 Grammys and released during her
record-breaking tour, which raked in over $2.2 billion across two years
and five continents, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time.
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Taylor Swift performs at Wembley Stadium as part of her Eras Tour
June 21, 2024, in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP,
File)
The album is also her first release since Swift regained control over
her entire body of work. In May, that pop star said she purchased her
catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records
— from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock
Capital. She did not disclose the amount.
In recent years, Swift has been rerecording and releasing her first six
albums in an attempt to regain control of her music. The project was
instigated by Hybe America CEO Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her
early catalog and represents Swift’s effort to control her own songs and
how they’re used. Previous “Taylor’s Version” releases have been more
than conventional re-recordings, arriving with new “from the vault”
music, Easter eggs and visuals that deepen understanding of her work.
So far, there have been four rerecorded albums, beginning with “Fearless
(Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in 2021. All four have
been massive commercial and cultural successes, each one debuting at No.
1 on the Billboard 200.
Swift’s last rerecording, “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” arrived in October
2023, just four months after the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s
Version).” That was the same year Swift claimed the record for the woman
with the most No. 1 albums in history.
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