UPDATED with the latest countdown and vinyl variant: Taylor Swift has returned from her post-Eras tour hiatus with the announcement of her twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl, out Oct. 3. The album will have 12 tracks, because of course.
In the weeks after Swift started trickling out the album launch on Aug. 12, she has posted three countdowns to her website that lead to vinyl variant covers and discs from the original orange and mint green combination. The latest alternate cover shot features Swift cloacked in red feather plumes with a bejewled crown of two stacked stars over her hair. This is the “Tiny Bubbles in Champagne” edition, which comes in either a “Bright Lights Pearlescent” vinyl or a “Red Lipstick & Lace Transparent” vinyl.
RELATED: All Of Taylor Swift’s ‘Life Of A Showgirl’ Album Covers & Images
“The Shiny Bug Edition” vinyl variant came first, with one disk described as “an opaque violet vinyl with black and gold marbling and gold shimmer” and the other is the “wintergreen & onyx marbled vinyl.” Then came the “Baby, That’s Showbusiness For You” edition with the “Lovely Bouquet Golden” Vinyl and the “Lakeside Beach Blue Sparkle” vinyl.
‘The Life of a Showgirl: The Shiny Bug Vinyl Collection’
Mert Alas / Marcus Piggott
The only featured artist on The Life of a Showgirl is Sabrina Carpenter in the title track. The rest of the track titles are as follows:
“The Fate of Ophelia”
“Elizabeth Taylor”
“Opalite”
“Father Figure”
Eldest Daughter”
“Ruin the Friendship”
“Actually Romantic”
“Wi$h Li$t”
“Wood
“CANCELLED!”
“Honey”
“The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter)”
The album cover, which features Swift mostly submerged in water in a silvery-white beaded dress arrived at the same time that the New Heights episode dropped Wednesday. Swift read out the tracks on the podcast episode after she revealed that she had been working on The Life of a Showgirl during the European leg of the Eras tour. She said she was “physically exhausted” but also “mentally stimulated” by the project.
In Swift’s caption and on the podcast, she confirmed that she had worked with former collaborators Max Martin and Shellback on the twelfth album. She emphasized that the three of them had never made an isolated album together. She also flew back and forth to Sweden to work with them.
“It meant the world to me to have this creative experience where we knew we had to bring the best ideas we’ve ever had. I know the pressure I’m putting on this record by saying that. I don’t care. This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time,” Swift said of The Life of a Showgirl. “There’s no other songs coming. It’s not like with The Tortured Poet’s Department, [where] I was like ‘Here’s a data dump of everything I thought in two or three years. Here’s 31 songs. This is 12. There’s not a 13th, there’s not a 14th.”
Swift posted another countdown to her website Wednesday that involved a wooden door — reminiscent of the door through which she left the stage in her last Eras tour concert — floating down to land between four squares — an orange, dark red, lilac or light blue and white one. These colors correspond to four different Deluxe CDs — which is not uncommon in a Swift album rollout. The orange is called the “Sweat and Vanilla Perfume” Edition, the red is called the “It’s Frightening” edition, the lilac is the “It’s Rapturous” edition and the white is the “It’s Beautiful” edition. The standard vinyl is a glittery orange color with a mint green sleeve over it. The deluxe versions correspond to colored squares hidden in the background on the podcast.
The songstress had a glittery orange background up on her website Monday night counting down to 12:12 ET or 9:12 PT. At 9 p.m. ET and 7 p.m. PT, Travis and Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast announced that Swift would, indeed, be the special guest on Wednesday’s new episode, which drops at 7 p.m. ET. Fans had been speculating, some even going so far as to photoshop a picture of Swift into the mystery guest silhouette cutout on the promo shot for the episode.
Swift confirmed her brand new album, The Life of a Showgirl, in the promo video for the New Heights episode that arrived Wednesday, holding up a blurred out cover of the vinyl. A new clip with the artwork showing was then released.
“It’s everything that was going on behind the curtain,” Swift said of the theme of the album, referring to finishing an Eras tour concert and not getting to bed until 4 a.m., etc. “My main goals were melodies that were so infectious that you’re almost angry at it, and lyrics that are just as vivid byt crisp and focused and completely intentional.”
