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It\u2019s no surprise that Taylor Swift<\/strong><\/a> has a new album in the works\u2014did you really think the woman who released an entirely new double album in the middle of the biggest tour in history<\/a> is at any point not working on new music?\u2014but the particulars of her first The Life of a Showgirl<\/em> announcement show that Swift has some new tricks to offer.<\/p>\n Never before has Swift involved another public figure, let alone a romantic partner, so heavily in the rollout of a project. Beau Travis Kelce<\/strong>, as well as muppet-turned-man (a glowingly positive descriptor, to be clear) Jason Kelce<\/strong>, will be forever linked with Swift\u2019s nascent Showgirl<\/em> era. The brothers sent the Swiftie-aligned world into a frenzy first with the tease of a super-special secret guest<\/a> on an off-cycle episode of their podcast, New Heights<\/em>, this Wednesday then revealed that, of course it would be Swift<\/a>, then<\/em> at 12:12 am<\/a> Tuesday (disrespectful to my advancing age, but I digress) revealed the album\u2019s title. It is now available for a so-called pre-pre-order. (The listings on Swift\u2019s web store say the albums will ship by October 13, while making it clear that that is not the official release date. There are six Fridays between now and then, but would Swift want to sneak the release in just before the eligibility deadline for the 2026 Grammys<\/a>, or at the crack o\u2019 2027 Grammy dawn?)<\/p>\n The Kelce brothers\u2019 podcast, already popular with sports fans pre-Swift, broadened its audience significantly when Swift and Travis Kelce went public with their relationship in September 2023. In the two years since then<\/a>, she\u2019s gone to a lot of his games<\/a>, he\u2019s gone to a lot of her shows<\/a>, they\u2019ve eaten a lot of dinners<\/a>, and he\u2019s even made an onstage cameo, scooping her off the ground<\/a> in a tux and tails to segue into all-time depression bop \u201cI Can Do It With a Broken Heart.\u201d Apart from the constant speculation that a just off-camera Swift is the cause of a twinkle in Travis\u2019 eye while recording the show, she\u2019s never appeared on New Heights<\/em>, as a guest or even as a cameo, as Jason\u2019s wife Kylie Kelce<\/strong> and their daughters have many times, whether audibly or visibly.<\/p>\n The album itself is a new era (finally, a use for all those unused orange beads in your bracelet-making kit!), but so is this very public link between Swift and Travis. Ex-partner Joe Alwyn<\/strong> co-wrote tracks with Swift on a few albums, under the pseudonym William Bowery, but didn\u2019t publicly knit his image with her work like this. As the terminally online chroniclers of Swift\u2019s smudged red lipstick over the past few years will eagerly tell you, Swift and Kelce are no strangers to PDA, but this is a public display of association<\/em> unlike anything we\u2019ve ever seen from Swift before. Of Swift\u2019s partners, Kelce is certainly the person most welcoming of publicity himself, but it\u2019s a big step to make him so permanent a feature of the album\u2019s lore.<\/p>\n Of course, Swift being Swift, Showgirl<\/em> Easter eggs and clues already abound. Three squares with the \u201cT.S.\u201d logo treatment being used in early promotion are visible on the shelves behind Swift and Kelce in the New Heights<\/em> video, each a different color. The Wednesday evening episode tease indicated she\u2019ll be revealing the album art on the show, so it feels like a non-zero chance that this signals special editions.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a newly released playlist on her Spotify account titled \u201cAnd, baby, that\u2019s show business for you<\/a>.\u201d It features 22 of Swift\u2019s own tracks, beginning with Red<\/em>\u2019s \u201c22.\u201d All the songs on the compilation (which runs one hour and twenty-two<\/em> minutes, ahem) are from Red<\/em>, Reputation<\/em>, and 1989<\/em>, original flavors, not Taylor\u2019s Version<\/em>, with the exception of \u201cMessage in a Bottle,\u201d which was a vault track only released on Red (Taylor\u2019s Version)<\/em>. What does this mean? Well, for one thing, all the included tracks were co-written or co-produced by Max Martin<\/strong> and Shellback<\/strong>, a Swedish producing duo, perhaps portending a fresh collaboration between Swift and the team on Showgirl<\/em>. If her 2024 original album, The Tortured Poets Department,<\/em> was by and large a sad-girl soundtrack, helmed by frequent Swift producers Jack Antonoff<\/strong> and Aaron Dessner<\/strong>, the return of Martin and Shellback hints at a pop-rock inflected sound for the new work.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the prevalence of the number two in the rollout: Swift loves a good numerical hint, and this is no exception. Seeing double? Perhaps. I predicted a double album drop<\/a> for The Tortured Poets Department<\/em> and was right-ish, and I\u2019ll predict it again for Showgirl<\/em>. Act I and Act II, anyone? Swift is as maximalist in her musical output as she is in her productions, and she\u2019s already said that the vault tracks for Reputation<\/em> are finished<\/a>. Since buying back her masters<\/a>, there\u2019s not a whole lot of reason for Swift to release Rep TV<\/em>\u2014why not release them as part of a second album, along with relics that didn\u2019t make her self-titled debut album? After all, if we\u2019re talking about the life of this showgirl, a return to where her stardom started would make sense.<\/p>\n As for why those fresh trademark applications for \u201cThe Life of a Showgirl\u201d<\/a> and \u201cTLOAS\u201d filed<\/a> by Swift\u2019s corporate arm this week are officially categorized in paperwork as being for candles\u2026that remains a mystery. It\u2019s good to wonder, no?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n