Pop megastar Taylor Swift made a rare media appearance on her boyfriend’s podcast, revealing details about her life and upcoming album.
Taylor Swift appeared on New Heights on Wednesday night, drawing a live audience of over 1.3 million people eager to hear album news – and to see her interact with longtime boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce, who hosts the show with his brother and former fellow football player Jason Kelce. The wide-ranging interview touched on everything from Swift’s current obsession (baking sourdough bread) to how she and Travis got together to details of her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, slated for release on 3 October.
The 12-track album – a nod to it being her 12th album – Swift explained, delves into “what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during [the Eras] tour, which was so exuberant, electric and vibrant.”
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The album marks a sharp departure from The Tortured Poets Department (2024) in both in tone and sheer volume. “There are no other songs coming,” Swift said, a nod to Tortured Poets’ surprise second album, which amounted to a 31-song “data dump” of everything she was thinking, feeling and experiencing over two or three years. The new album takes a more focused, disciplined approach, something Swift said she’s “wanted to do for a very long time.”
“Every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons. You couldn’t take one out and it be the same album, you couldn’t add one. It is just right.” The 12 tracks, “bangers” that reflect the “most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic” period of Swift’s life, include a cover of the late George Michael’s 1987 song “Father Figure” and the title track, featuring Sabrina Carpenter. It also marks the return of legendary Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback, “geniuses” that Swift credits with working on her favourite songs including “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space”.
Swift recorded the album during her 21-month-long Eras tour, frequently returning to Sweden to work with Martin and Shellback. “I was basically exhausted at this point in the tour, but I was so mentally stimulated and so excited to be creating,” she said. Her main goals for the album? “Melodies that were so infectious that you’re almost angry at it” and lyrics that were “just as vivid but crisp and focused and completely intentional.”
