And, baby, that’s show business for you: Two days after announcing her 12th studio album, Taylor Swift appeared as a very special guest on boyfriend Jason Kelce’s and his brother Jason’s sports podcast, “New Heights.”
In her first ever podcast interview — one that went for two hours and four minutes — Swift began by jokingly thanking “New Heights” for “getting me a boyfriend,” a nod to the fact that she and Kelce first connected after he complained on the show that he didn’t get to meet her at one of her Eras tours show.
“Travis is just a vibe booster in everyone’s life … he’s like a human exclamation point,” she says at one point. We get glimpses into their home life, including Swift’s new interest in baking sourdough. “I’m thinking about bread about 60 per cent of the time now,” she jokes.
She also talked at length about reclaiming her masters, finally buying complete control over her first six albums this summer after a protracted battle that resulted in the “Taylor’s Versions” she has released over the last two years. “Since I was a teenager, I’ve been saving up money to buy my albums,” Swift says, later seeming to imply that it was the record-smashing success of the Eras tour that gave her the cash to finally do so. “I thought about not owning my music every day. It was an intrusive thought I had every day.”
At the same time as the podcast dropped, Swift also took to social media to share the full album cover — which she says represents the end of her night on tour, in the bath taking off her makeup — the 12 (and only 12, she stressed) track listing and the release date: Oct. 3.
“This album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour which was so exuberant and electric … it comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in,” she says on the podcast, confirming that she had made the album in Sweden with producers Max Martin and Shellback, who worked on “1989” and “Red.”
“That effervescence has come through in this record … I care more about this record than I can even overstate.”
Kelce added that it’s “all bangers, more upbeat, fun, pop, excitement … you are going to move, this album is going to make you dance.” Swift says that it’s about “everything that was going on behind the curtain,” with “melodies that are so infectious that you’re mad at it.”
After a characteristic sprinkling of Easter eggs — some subtle and laid months ago; some as obvious as her official fan account yesterday posting a carousel of images of her wearing orange, this new album’s designated colour — Swift announced Tuesday that a new album, titled “The Life of a Showgirl,” is imminent.
Swift shared the news in a teaser clip for her appearance on Kelce’s podcast.
Holding up a mint-green briefcase, with “TS” printed in orange on the front, she told his co-host and brother that she had something to show him. She then pulled out a vinyl record, its cover blurred out in post-production, and said, “This is my brand new album.”
A link on Swift’s social media accounts took fans to a pre-pre-order site, where they were told that while items would ship before Oct. 13.
Swifties are always looking for signs that Swift — who has surprise-dropped two albums, and has a long history of leaving clues for her fans that point to her next release — is about to put out new music.
In the case of TS12, as fans refer to the new album, the signs have been there for a while, as documented by eagle-eyed Swiftie detectives on social media.
The number 12 has been referred to by Swift for a while, from the number of jewels in the earrings she wore to the Grammy Awards this year to the string of 12 O’s used to add emphasis to her statement announcing she’d bought back the master recordings of six of her albums. This tussle for artistic ownership had inspired her wildly successful Taylor’s Version re-recording project, which she undertook while performing her record-smashing Eras tour.
In the past few days, however, the hints began to be dropped in earnest, starting with word that the Kelce brothers were coming back early from their podcast break to drop an episode on Wednesday with a mystery guest. The artwork for this news included a cut-out where that guest would be, with fans quickly guessing that it would be Swift based on the outline. For some bonus 12s, fans traced the image to Swift’s appearance on Variety’s Directors On Directors, which came out on Dec. 12, 2022.
Twelve minutes later, fans saw that post from her official fan account that captioned a carousel of pictures of Swift on the Eras tour wearing exclusively orange outfits, “Thinking about when she said ‘See you next era…’”
The next developments came thick and fast, with Swifties on red (or should we say orange?) alert.
On Monday evening, a countdown began on Swift’s website, “expiring”on Aug. 12 at 12:12 a.m. That’s when the New Heights teaser clip, featuring the announcement, went live.
Shortly afterward, billboards went up in Nashville and New York, two cities Swift has deep ties to and which represent her country and pop personas, linking to a Spotify playlist titled “And, baby, that’s show business for you.” Fans quickly spotted that all of the songs on this playlist were tracks Swift had made with producers Max Martin and Shellback, most leaning toward pop rather than the more melancholy ballads that dominated her last album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”
This is just the beginning of the star’s next era — Swifties are ready for it.
