At 2pm AEST last Friday October 3, Taylor Swift released her 12th album The Life of a Showgirl.
Taylor first shared that new music was coming on then boyfriend now fiancé Travis Kelce‘s podcast New Heights giving a huge boost to that audio platform as well as the Kelce brothers’ product.
It was the most pre-saved album in Spotify history, breaking her own record held by the previous Tortured Poets Society. On October 3, within 11 hours, it became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day this year.
Movie cinemas had a special 89 minute The Official Release Party of a Showgirl showing all across the long weekend. Being out and about in the city and at the cinema last night, NRL Grand Final night too, it was fascinating the mix of showgirls and sports fans everywhere I looked.
Taylor has reinvigorated old school album releases where songs were designed to be played in a specific order and within the songs were messages, stories and easter eggs that true fans could decipher. It’s one thing for the artist to intend the album to be a complete whole rather than a collection of potential singles. But such is the power of Taylor Swift that radio stations worldwide debuted the album, which has explicit language on several tracks, track by track as it was intended.
In the US iHeartRadio played each track in exact order with introductory audio and exclusive insights from Taylor herself.
SiriusXM created their own easter egg hunt, launching Channel 13 on Sunday September 21st, featuring Taylor Swift 24/7. On the 13th day of the channel, Friday, October 3 the channel began playing the full album from beginning to end every other hour starting at midnight. 13 is Taylor’s lucky number.
Audacy featured Taylor Swift: On The Record on its radio stations, a program hosted by Bru featuring Taylor also walking fans through each track of the new album. Then, even though she probably didn’t need to as radio was putting in the hard yards for her, she called in and visited a couple of stations too, iHearts’s Elvis Duran and the Morning Show and she popped in on Baby Spice, aka Emma Bunton‘s UK Heart radio show on the album release date leaving both starstruck (watch below):
She also popped in on the Graham Norton show too to show off her ring and give Kelce and his podcast another additional shout out:
In Australia, SCA‘s Hit Network went all Taylor all weekend playing the full album on release and with Swiftie Radio also back, on LiSTNR (main image). Nova stations too played the album track by track at 2pm on the 3rd, with Kate Ritchie going to extra lengths to get into the spirit of the occasion:
ARN stations were less onboard. The Gold Network were more interested in the NRL Grand final. KIIS’s contribution was a chat with fans:
Bearing in mind that metro radio talent are on survey break at the moment – so perhaps a reason for less impetus to get a chat with Swift to air.
The next step will be seeing how the music lands. Taylor has is living perilously close to Emperor’s new clothes fable, where I wonder how many can speak honestly about what hits and what doesn’t really. Reviews have been ok but not glowing or blown away. Nick Bond at news.com.au said:
“There are, however, a few missteps here, meaning The Life of a Showgirl never quite scales the heights of (those) earlier albums.”
The ‘not quite as good’ has been repeated a few times, but there is still millions who will buy it on vinyl, CD and even cassette.
The RCS Media Monitors National Radio Airplay Chart is out on Thursday showing commercial radio airplay over the last week. How many Taylor Swift songs will there be? Will she debut at No 1? Or is there a subtle shift in this country too where listeners, and music directors, also find this isn’t quite the album of hits that 1989 was.
We shall see.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo.