THE RUNDOWN
- Taylor Swift started a new countdown clock this morning, set to expire at 2 P.M. It’s her second this week.
- Fans theorized Swift could be announcing The Life of a Showgirl’s first single.
- On August 18, Swift shared news of a special The Life of a Showgirl: The Shiny Bug Vinyl Collection after her first countdown.
Less than one week after revealing the cover art, tracklist, and release date for her upcoming album The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift has another announcement at 2 P.M. ET today.
With industry standard being artists releasing new music at midnight Friday, Swift could announce her first single will come out tonight or unveil another alternate cover for her album. This post will be updated with the news she shares.
On August 18, Swift did her first 2 P.M. ET countdown. At the end of it, she revealed that she is selling a rare vinyl collection for her new album, available for only 48 hours.
Swift put fans on alert that morning when she started the countdown on her site—the same way she did today. Thankfully, the wait wasn’t long then and isn’t long now.
Taylor Swift’s new countdown on her site.
At 2 P.M. on August 18, she posted on Instagram, “The Life of a Showgirl: The Shiny Bug Vinyl Collection is available now on my site for 48 hours❤️🔥,” alongside a new cover shot of her taken by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott.
You can shop it here:
With her second countdown ending at 2 P.M. today, August 21, it is unclear what news she’ll share. Possibilities include Swift revealing that she will perform at the 2026 Super Bowl or 2025 MTV VMAs.
During the first countdown, some fans were convinced she’d announce her album’s first single and release date. Fans also noticed that Swift’s Apple Music page was glittering in purple ahead of the announcement, with some Swifties theorizing her first single will be “Actually Romantic.”
The URL for her site auto-directed to store.taylorswift.com/password for the first countdown and is also re-directing to that URL during the second.
Over the weekend, fans speculated that the star hinted at a 2026 Super Bowl halftime show performance during her New Heights appearance.
Swift spoke about her love of numerology during the show, and fans linked her comment about having thoughts of sourdough “60 percent of the time” to next year’s Super Bowl since it is the NFL’s 60th ever. The game will also take place in Levi’s Stadium, home to the San Francisco 49ers whose mascot is notably Sourdough Sam.
During the interview, the singer explained her Easter egg methodology: “The art of the Easter egg is that there’s do’s and don’ts, right? I’m never going to plant an Easter egg that ties back to my personal life. It’s always going to be towards music or a musical.”
“Something I’m coming up with, something I have coming up, a plan I have coming together,” she continued. “Something that you don’t know I’m saying for a specific reason that you’ll hear later and you’ll go back and be like, ‘Oh my god.’ I think my favorite one of those was I was given an honorary doctorate from NYU, and I made the commencement speech. And I put so many lyrical Easter eggs in that speech that when the Midnights album came out after that, the fans were like, ‘The whole speech was an Easter egg.’ And for me, that’s really fun because they find it fun.”
