Why Swifties are Freaking Out Right Now by Neha, Grade 9
If you have been on social media recently, you may have noticed lots of people reposting these specific images, and you might not know what they mean.
These pictures were both recently posted by Taylor Swift, as her announcement that she will be releasing a new album in 2024. Her new album, TS. 11, as swifties had called it before the title was revealed, will be released on April 19. It is called “The Tortured Poet’s Department,” and as seen in the images above, it seems to have a black and white color scheme. This black and white color scheme is what has been throwing swifties off, as none of her fans had been expecting this announcement.
To give some context, Taylor Swift is a music artist widely known for incorporating easter eggs into her every action. Every time she posts on social media, or says something out of the ordinary at an event, Swifties read into it, since she tends to foreshadow her major projects through tiny, everyday choices. And recently, as fans noticed, Taylor Swift has been wearing a lot of the color black at events, as seen in these photos:
(Taylor Swift at the 2023 MTV VMA’s, September 2023)
(Taylor Swift attending her 34th Birthday celebration, December 2023)
(Taylor Swift’s outfit at Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley’s rehearsal dinner, August 2023)
Many of her fans were convinced that these outfits were her way of foreshadowing the release announcement of “Reputation: Taylor’s Version”. Reputation was an album that Taylor Swift released in November 2017, when she was signed onto a contract that didn’t give her the full rights to all of her music. Therefore, she didn’t have all the rights on any album that was made before that contract expired. Taylor has been fighting against this issue by re-recording and re-releasing those same songs and albums from when she was on the contract, so that she could actually own all of her work. She calls these projects “Taylor’s Version” albums. She also records songs from “The Vault” on these albums, which are songs that she drafted for the originals but didn’t end up including. So far, she has re-released four different “Taylor’s Version” albums: Fearless (Taylor’s version), in 2021, Red (Taylor’s Version), in 2022, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), in 2023, and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in 2023. As we can see, she has averaged about one “Taylor’s Version” album per year since 2021, so it seems reasonable to her fans to expect another Taylor’s Version album in 2024.
But we were completely wrong. It seemed so likely that she would have been re-releasing her hit album “Reputation”, but that was completely wrong. Looking at the Reputation album cover (pictured below), we can see that it is very similar to the color scheme to the upcoming Tortured Poem’s Department, which led the Swifties on a wild goose chase thinking that she was doing another re-release when she was actually planning something completely new.
(Reputation Album cover, 2017)
Another reason that Swifties suspected that Taylor Swift would prioritize another “Taylor’s Version” album over one with completely new songs is because she has been so incredibly busy these days. She is currently performing the international leg of her tour, “The Eras Tour”, which was a huge hit in the US. The tour has already broken several records, and sold out almost every single show. To make it even more impressive, her tour currently lasts over 3 hours. That’s 3 hours of nonstop singing and dancing. To give a comparison, when most artists go on tour, their shows usually average about an hour and a half. But this tour isn’t all she’s been up to. She also produced an entire movie about this tour, and got it into movie theaters. These shows have generated massive amounts of revenue, once again being a huge hit among her fans. Between the premieres, events, and the entire filming, directing, and editing process, it must have taken a huge amount of effort and hard work to be able to produce and direct. And, just a few days ago, she announced that her movie would be available to stream on Disney Plus starting on March 15, which she’s calling “Taylor Swift: The Era’s Tour (Taylor’s Version).
Even though these two massive projects have added an immense workload to Taylor’s life, just every day life for someone as famous as her takes its toll as well. She constantly attends events, like the VMA’s and the Grammy’s, movie premieres, parties with her friends (not to mention her 34th birthday recently!), and goes to almost all of the Kansas City Chiefs games, since she’s dating Travis Kelce who is on the team. The Chiefs also qualified to go to the Super Bowl (which will take place on February 11th), which Taylor is going to be at, despite having to perform her international tour halfway around the world, in Japan, barely days before.
To put it simply: Taylor Swift is an extremely busy person. And adding a third huge project to her workload in addition to her tour and her movie is such an impressive feat for her to manage. And although I may not be able to speak for all the Swifties who were awaiting the announcement of “Reputation: Taylor’s Version”, I still am eagerly counting down the days until I can watch “Taylor Swift The Era’s Tour (Taylor’s Version)” at home, and I absolutely cannot wait to listen to “The Tortured Poet’s Department” either.
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