Five steps to deduce when Taylor Swift’s new album will be released
Pop star has released a new album every two years – almost always in October – since her debut in 2006. If history is anything to go by, her fans can expect an album this month ... although the singer has remained silent
The big question this year: when will Swift release her sixth album? She always releases her first single in the summer, before an autumn album release – but so far, she’s been radio silent. So it’s a question shrouded in mystery, not only for her fiercely devoted listeners, but also for the music industry. As one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, Swift is one of the only artists who can sell a million albums in a week.
Swift fans, meanwhile, are so eager for an album that they sometimes jump to conclusions: a couple weeks ago, country singer (and Swift pal) Kelsea Ballerini posted a Snapchat video of an audio clip that sounded suspiciously like Swift vocals on an upbeat song called Roses. The Swift fandom was in emergency mode until Ballerini cleared up the confusion herself.
As anticipation swells and Swift’s famous friends hint that she’s back in the studio, the album release date seems imminent; and I think I have a pretty solid guess: October 23, 2016. After years of watching Swift operate her masterful image control – this summer’s Calvin Harris and Hiddleswift and Kim Kardashian disasters notwithstanding – I feel like I’m close to cracking the code. Follow along as I lay out this very important five-step theory:
Step one: it’s going to be a surprise album
There’s no way it’s not going to be a surprise album, right? After a summer being mocked for her bizarrely fake-looking relationship with Tom Hiddleston and Harris’ tea-spilling tweets and that time Kim Kardashian made her look like a liar over the whole Kanye West lyric incident, Swift needs to change the narrative. What better way than to pull a Beyoncé? Instead of Tidal, it will just happen through Swift’s preferred outlet, Apple Music.
It’s unlikely Swift would want to go through the traditional press cycle of magazine covers and talk shows leading up to a big album release, especially when it will be impossible to avoid Hiddleston and Harris and Kardashian/West questions. As a bona fide superstar, she doesn’t really need the media.
