THE RUNDOWN
- Taylor Swift started her second countdown of the week, set to expire at 2 P.M. ET today.
- Swift released a new alternate cover for The Life of the Showgirl at the end of her first countdown.
- Swift could announce another cover or a new single this afternoon—time will tell.
Is another The Life of a Showgirl alternate cover coming? Will we finally get Taylor Swift’s first single from her new album? At 2 P.M. ET today, Swift will tell us.
The singer quietly launched her second countdown of the week on her site this morning, set in glittery turquoise. The URL of the site is store.taylorswift.com/password, just like last time.
On August 18, Swift posted a purple countdown that led to her announcing a limited-edition vinyl collection for her album, called “The Shiny Bug” collection. The records were available for just 48 hours.
Ahead of that reveal, fans theorized that she could be announcing “Actually Romantic” as her first single or even that she’s playing the Super Bowl halftime show next year.
Given this countdown’s timing—and the industry standard of artists releasing new music at midnight on Fridays—there’s a good chance Swift could be announcing a single will come out tonight.
Swift has stayed out of the public eye this week, but she spoke on New Heights just days ago about why she loves setting Easter eggs for fans. That desire to connect with them could be fueling her multiple countdowns.
The singer discussed her methodology, saying, “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…”
“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.”
This post will continue to be updated.
