Taylor Swift
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Swifties are done seeing the world of The Tortured Poets Department in black and white. Now, The Life of a Showgirl, the forthcoming 12th studio album from Taylor Swift, has drenched their reality in screaming color — shades of orange and teal, to be exact. The record marks the fifth album from the singer-songwriter in five years — not counting her re-recording series — but her fans never tire of the thrill of vindication. The hints and easter eggs that could have passed for symptoms of psychosis before might have been real all along. New era, same classic antics.
“It’s so fun to be a fan of the zodiac killer in pop star form,” a Swiftie named Lacey wrote on X a few hours before the official announcement of the new album arrived at 12:12 a.m. EST on Tuesday. “The excitement I feel when the cryptic hints start to take form. Nobody does it like Taylor!”
The high of the album announcement has some fans feeling like they could lift a car with one hand, or single-handedly speed up the passage of time. They don’t even know how long they have to go before Swift releases the album, or even unveils the first single. “A Taylor Swift announcement followed by a 48-hour wait for the cover & release date should actually be considered psychological warfare,” Swiftie Josefina said on X.
Combing through the past few years of Swift’s content, fans have noticed nods to the Showgirl era stretching all the way back to 2022, when she released Midnights. “With ‘The Life of a Show Girl,’ I’m revisiting the narrative of ‘Bejeweled.’ Remember that Tay is a show girl for the whole video, it’s the way she can win. Everything in the elevator and the tower she climbs is in the art deco style, the roaring 20s and the showgirls of the era,” another X user, Gaby, shared. Others have pointed out that in the elevator scene from “Bejeweled,” the buttons to the 2nd and 10th floors are orange, another nod to the number 12.
More hints were apparently hidden in the Eras Tour. In the “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” video, captured during the tour, fans realized that Swift rehearsed with orange burlesque feather fans. Some Swifties are taking it a bit further. “SWIFTIES I JUST REALIZED ANOTHER INSANE EASTER EGG,” one account, JB, announced on X. “‘Applause’ by Lady Gaga – which played in the pre show of every night of the Eras Tour – was released on AUGUST 12TH.” (The song also turns 12 years old today, but surely that could just be a twisted coincidence).
Swifties are digging into color theory (likely thing for them to do), too. “Super into whoever brought up the oxidation of copper with the color scheme,” a fan named Joy wrote. “The inevitable degradation and unwanted changes in appearance that come with a woman aging in the limelight….” The original post, already viral, was from a fan named Kaitlyn. “The colour scheme is copper oxidizing because a showgirl is on a pedestal for the world and over time,” she said. “In the public eye they lose their shine… the weathering from being the target for the world’s misogyny.”
Fans have pointed out parallels to fictional characters that were showgirls in their own universe — like Lucy Gray Baird in Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, or Carrie Bradshaw when she finds out that Big is moving to Paris.
Swift hasn’t directly addressed fans quite yet. She will appear on boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast New Heights on Wednesday, and revealed the album title in the teaser for the episode. But overnight, Spotify billboards appeared with a code to access a playlist titled “And baby, that’s show business for you” full of Swift songs. Coincidentally, all of the songs included were produced by Max Martin. “Does Spotify even have the infrastructure to handle a Taylor Swift Max Martin and Shellbeck release,” one Swiftie asked. Another added: “Thinking about the fact that there’s swifties who don’t even know who Max Martin and Shellback are…. ancient texts REVIVED.”
This has also led many fans to believe Swift’s most consistent collaborator, Jack Antonoff, was not involved with the project. “Jack Antonoff I love you and your synthesizer dearly and will defend you until the day I die but Max Martin and Shellback I am welcoming you back with arms wide open,” Swiftie Holly wrote about Swift’s other 1989 and Reputation collaborators. Another added: “Aaron Dessner, we might not meet you at midnight for the album release but I do believe we will meet you at 1 am for some bonus tracks.”
With The Life of a Showgirl on the way, Swifties are ready for their closeup — kind of. “Being the office swiftie is so humiliating, like I have to go to bed knowing I’m in for a whole press junket tomorrow,” one user wrote. It’s showtime.
From Rolling Stone US.
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