Less than a year since her blockbuster Eras tour concluded, Taylor Swift has unveiled her latest album: The Life of A Showgirl. After announcing the new record on her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast New Heights, the singer has now unveiled the album artwork and the official release date.
No stranger to dropping Easter eggs for her fans, a countdown to 12.12am EST on 12 August appeared on her website, which transformed into a glittering orange facade. Early on Monday, Swift’s marketing team posted a carousel of 12 photos with the caption "Thinking about when she said 'See you next era…".
Then, Kelce revealed that his girlfriend would be a guest on the new episode of New Heights, posting a silhouette of Swift taken from a photoshoot on 12 December 2022. The Life of a Showgirl will be her 12th album, and in keeping with the theme, it will be released in October.
The artist’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, broke the Spotify record for being the most-streamed album in a day. Allegedly picking apart the end of her relationship with actor Joe Alwyn, it also appeared to skewer The 1975 singer Matty Healy after a brief romantic liaison in the wry song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.
After the success of her last album, and the record-breaking Eras tour, the highest-grossing tour in history and the first to break $1bn, The Life of A Showgirl is set to be one of the biggest music launches of 2025.
Here’s how to pre-order the new record – plus the official release date.
‘The Life of a Showgirl’ vinyl: £29.99, Taylorswift.com
Taylor Swift has unveiled the cover artwork for The Life of a Showgirl, which is an image of her half immersed in water, broken up into pieces of glass. This could be a reference to the record’s opening track, “The Fate of Ophelia”, with Swift taking inspiration from John Everett Millais’s paining of Hamlet’s famous character singing in a river before she drowns.
A nod to it being her 12th album, there are 12 tracks on the record, including a cover of George Michael’s 1987 song “Father Figure” – plus, a collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter in the title track.
Fans don’t have long to wait until the new album, with the release date set for 3 October 2025. In the lengthy podcast interview to coincide with the announcement, Swift said she recorded the album in Europe while she was on the Era’s tour. Inspired by her two years spent on road, the album promises to take you behind the scenes.
“This album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour, which was so exuberant and electric and vibrant,” she said. “I’m so proud of it. And it comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life, so that effervescence has come through on this record.”
Swift has reunited with Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback, who worked on her albums Red, 1989 and Reputation, including the songs “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space”.
There’s a limit of four vinyls per customer, and the website states that the record is only available to pre-order while stocks last, so act fast.
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