Taylor Swift surprised fans Sunday night with the announcement of an all-new album set to come out Oct. 26. The reveal came during her climactic speech at the MTV Video Music Awards, as she accepted an award for video of the year.
“You guys, I’m just so proud of what we made, and I now that every second of this moment that we wouldn’t have been able to make this short film if it weren’t for you, the fans,” she said, accepting for “All Too Well (10-Minute Version).” “Because I wouldn’t be able to re-record my album [‘Red (Taylor’s Version),’ which included the winning song] if it weren’t for you. You emboldened me to do that. And I had sort of made up my mind that if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand-new album comes out October 21st. And I will tell you more at midnight.”
Unlike other recent superstar releases, where the stars were at least known to be at work in the studio prior to their projects being announced, Swift had kept this one completely under wraps until now. Many of her followers had been expecting to see another edition in her “Taylor’s Version” series of re-recordings of her Big Machine catalog before the end of the year. But this release will consist entirely of fresh material — her first such album since “Folklore” and “Evermore” both came out as surprise releases five months apart in 2020.
Since those last two original albums came out of the same burst of creative energy working with the same producers during the pandemic, there’s been curiosity as to whatever she would move on to next would continue in that more subdued, acoustic, Americana vein, or bring her back more in line with the pure pop of 2019’s “Lover” and the albums that preceded it. Swift may or may not expectations for the style of the new album when she takes to her social media at midnight ET to tell more.