(Bloomberg) — Taylor Swift announced the name of her twelfth studio album, on a podcast Tuesday, a welcome surprise to fans and a move that’s likely to help revive flagging sales at Universal Music Group.
The US pop star started dropping cryptic hints about the new album on her Instagram account on Monday, coinciding with news that she’d be making an appearance on the New Heights podcast hosted by her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother Jason. In a snippet of the show, which was uploaded on Instagram just after midnight New York time, Swift is showing pulling a vinyl from a briefcase.
Most Read from Bloomberg
“So I wanted to show you something,” she says. “This is my brand new album, .”
An official release date hasn’t been revealed. The full podcast episode should get uploaded on Wednesday at 7pm E.T.
Swift has been a rare appearance on the New Heights podcast, but her relationship with the Kansas City Chiefs football star has helped drive traffic to what was already a hit podcast. The show was the tenth most popular podcast in the US in the second quarter, according to Edison Research.
The release comes more than a year after her 11th album, which topped global charts and is expected to drive revenue for Republic Records, one of Universal’s key labels. The world’s largest music company is counting on blockbuster artists to fuel sales, after second-quarter earnings fell short of estimates as merchandise revenue came under pressure.
Swift ended a long dispute against former record label Big Machine Label Group in May by re-acquiring the rights to her first six albums. Her campaign to regain control of music rights took years, during which re-recordings dubbed drew massive support from fans and reinforced her leverage within the industry.
Republic Records is also a distributor of Netflix Inc.’s hit animation film , which was produced by Sony Pictures Animation. The title song topped Billboard Hot 100 this week
(Updates with context on podcast in fifth paragraph)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.