Taylor Swift unveiled an October 3 release date for her 12th studio album — or as Swifties call it, TS12 — titled The Life of a Showgirl on Wednesday (August 13).
The popstar also revealed the full tracklist featuring a collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter on a track called The Life of a Showgirl.
Carpenter opened for Swift during The Eras Tour.
Here’s the complete tracklist for The Life of a Showgirl:
- 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 featuring Sabrina Carpenter
The announcement came through coordinated posts across Swift’s social media accounts at 7 pm ET yesterday, coinciding with her appearance on boyfriend Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast. The timing followed a countdown that appeared on her website.
Swift worked with Max Martin and Shellback on the 12-track record, the Swedish producers who also collaborated with Swift on hits from her Reputation and 1989 records.
Swift said during the podcast: “We’ve never actually made an album before where… it’s just the three of us. There’s no other collaborators. It’s just the three of us making a focused album where… it felt like catching lightning in a bottle.”
The new album marks a departure from Swift’s recent pattern of releasing expanded editions with additional tracks. Speaking to Travis Kelce and his brother, Jason Kelce, Swift said no bonus songs will follow, unlike The Tortured Poets Department, which had 31 tracks.
She added: “There’s no other songs coming. It’s not like with Tortured Poets Department when I was like, ‘Here’s a data dump of everything I’ve thought, felt or experienced in two or three years. Here’s 31 songs.’ This is 12. There’s not a 13th… There’s not other ones coming. This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time.
“There’s no other songs coming. It’s not like with Tortured Poets Department… This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time.”
Taylor Swift
Swift also shared during the podcast that she worked on the album while her Eras Tour traveled through Europe. She described feeling “physically exhausted” from touring but “mentally stimulated” by the creative process, “and literally living the life of a show girl.”
The Eras Tour, which spanned 149 shows across 51 cities globally, became the highest-grossing concert tour in history, and the first in history to sell over $2 billion in tickets.
The album will be distributed via Universal Music Group’s Republic Records.
The album arrives as Swift bought back the master recordings of her first six studio albums from investment firm Shamrock Capital on May 30.
The transaction involved the master rights to Swift’s albums Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation – recordings that have been at the center of a six-year battle over artist ownership rights.
The deal represented a full-circle moment for Swift, whose masters were included in the sale of Scooter Braun’ Big Machine Label Group to Ithaca Holdings in 2019. Ithaca Holdings then sold the master rights to Taylor Swift’s first six studio albums to Shamrock in 2020.
Swift responded to the sale of her masters by re-recording her classic albums with new “Taylor’s Versions,” which she would fully own.
Swift has successfully re-recorded four of the six disputed albums: Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Only Reputation and her self-titled debut album remain unreleased as re-recordings.
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