New York, New York – Taylor Swift‘s hotly anticipated The Life of a Showgirl drops at 12:01 AM ET Friday, accompanied by a swirl of public release parties and plenty of fans in the music superstar’s chosen color this time around: orange.
“Something that’s been interesting from the last few albums is that we get an aesthetic, we get colors, but we don’t hear any sound from the album until midnight on the Friday that it’s released,” fan Michael Kutek told AFP in New York.
Showgirl is the 35-year-old’s 12th studio album, and draws inspiration from her life on the record-shattering Eras Tour, which wrapped up late last year with a staggering $2 billion in ticket sales.
Indeed, it’s Swift’s world, and we are all living in it: this year, she bought back the rights to her entire back catalog and got engaged to her NFL Super Bowl champion boyfriend Travis Kelce before the album’s release.
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The album “comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life,” she said on the New Heights podcast hosted by Kelce and his brother. “That effervescence has come through.”
Swift has said to expect “bangers” on the 12-track Showgirl, and her reunion with Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback – responsible for her infectious Shake It Off and 22 – certainly suggests a pop-heavy outing.
Fans were excited about what Swift has called her “Portofino orange” theme.
31-year-old Kutek, who was attending a pop-up promo event in the massive run-up to the release, said the color was “very loud” and “gaudy,” but “in a good way.”
The album is the most pre-saved album ever on the Spotify streaming platform, breaking the record set last year by… Swift’s last album, The Tortured Poets Department.
Swifties will also cram into movie theaters all weekend for special release parties featuring the video from The Fate of Ophelia, behind-the-scenes footage from its shoot, and so-called “lyric videos” – when a song’s lyrics are featured onscreen.
The one-off movie event is estimated to gross between $30-50 million, according to film industry website Deadline.
