TS12: Predicting The Sound And Style Of Taylor's Upcoming 12th Album
My take and insights on Taylor's next album aesthetic
It really does seem like we are “thiiiiiiiiiiiis close” to the next installment in the Taylor Swift Cinematic Universe. With the two remaining Taylor’s Version rerecords firmly on pause, attention has turned to the road ahead and the possibilities of what Taylor’s 12th studio album could sound - and look! - like.
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The conversation was reinvigorated by a recent, and now-edited, Hits Daily Double piece. The music outlet published an article on July 15 that initially described “seismic rumblings” at Taylor’s Republic Records that would keep the label “aggressive” in 2025’s chart battles. Now, it describes Taylor’s presence as a perpetual consideration for chart domination. My guess for the edit’s reasoning was a sharp tap on the wrists from Tree Paine, Taylor’s publicist. On July 26, The Sun reported that Taylor was filming a “70s theme” music video in Los Angeles. If true, this would be the tabloid’s second early break of forthcoming Taylor news. In 2022, they were one of the first to scoop that new music, October’s Midnights, was in the works. These whispers join other confirmed nuggets about Taylor’s forthcoming 12th release (referred to as “TS12”). In April, Swedish composer Erik Arvinder was reported by Universal Music Group (Republic’s parent company) to be part of the album’s personnel, hinting that an orchestral sound was being arranged as part of the album. We also received word last fall via Entertainment Tonight that new music was on the horizon following planned “time off.” And, of course, there’s thaaaaaaaaaaaat letter.
Taylor’s brand of penmanship is a fixation on the past. She synthesizes understanding through song. Each track is a memory held to the light, letting hindsight permeate to reveal a prismatic new perspective of what she just experienced. Every album looks directly into the shadow eclipsed behind a spotlight’s glare, documenting the intervals of life between every release. Indeed, when her albums had a reliable biannual cadence, she described her body of work as “[her] life recorded in journal entries from two-year periods of [her] life.”
The rerecords, by contrast, forced her to unearth a time capsule. To dig deep. So it’s no wonder that they inspired a run of such prolific productivity. Taylor has released eight albums (four of those new) in five years. For context, it took 11 years for the first six of her - recently reacquired - back catalogue of albums to be released. It’s also evident that her experience living in two separate timelines (her present and past) overflowed into her current work. Certainly, it’s not hard to find traces of the rerecords woven into her new songs. Take her 2022 conceptual album Midnights - a work centered on “13 sleepless nights scattered throughout [her] life.” The songs “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” and “Question…?” feel like direct results of rerecording Speak Now and 1989 — the latter going so far as to sample the 2014 song “Out Of the Woods.” The rerecords also likely inspired songs on 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department as well. Tracks like “thanK you aIMee” and “Cassandra” seem to retrace the dramatic origins of reputation. And perhaps are even the frustrated outputs of Taylor trying and, by her own admission, “hitting a stopping point when [she] tried to remake” that album.
Taylor’s 12th studio album will mark her first release since taking complete ownership of her life’s work. With this, it might be her most present and perhaps even forward-thinking album yet.
🥚 Easter Eggs, Decoded: I broke down some of the hints we’ve received about TS12 in an earlier newsletter that provided an overview of Taylor’s battle to regain control of her masters.
🧠 Eras In Transition: In this newsletter I recap the clearest bridge points in Taylor’s style as her fashion shifts from one era to the next.
When we approach a new Taylor album, we aren’t just imagining what it might sound like - we’re also imagining what it looks like. For every Taylor album, there’s an associated aesthetic it pairs with. Intentionally so!
For Taylor, her fashion and music work in tandem to communicate a message. As this generation’s most prolific songwriter, we’re most familiar with her confessional, emotional songs about her life. But her style is the other half of that story. The visual half that iconifies every era and makes moments memorable. It is not a coincidence that you can correlate a photo of Taylor to a period of time in her life. After all, it was a wise poet who once said, “What if I told you none of it was accidental?”
For nearly two decades Taylor has used her fashion as the visual counterpoint to her music. Through her style she’s been able to divide her life into 11 distinct periods that you can easily plot on a chronological timeline. That isn’t a mistake, nor is it an easy feat to pull off.
Some may wonder, particularly at this juncture in Taylor’s career, if dressing this intentional is really necessary. What more does she have to prove? Is she not recognizable enough simply as “Taylor”? Is it possible to see an era without the “gimmick” of a carefully planned and curated aesthetic to match? To be sure, Taylor once described the obligation for female artists to reinvent themselves as a requisite to being employed. “The female artists that I know have reinvented themselves 20 times more than the male artists. You have to. Or else you’re out of a job,” she said in the 2020 documentary Miss Americana. She continued, describing the process as “constantly having to reinvent. Constantly finding new facets of ourselves that people find to be shiny.”
Tiring though it may be and unfair though the expectation may fall on female and male artists to turn over a new leaf at regular intervals, it is also true that Taylor has found deep satisfaction in curating a graphic representation of her most recognizable selves. It displays her savvy eye for the long game to build a visual legacy you can easily plot over the course of years and, soon, decades. Indeed, wasn’t a core tenet of the Eras Tour to walk nostalgically, hand in hand, down memory lane through a three hour production honoring all the past versions Taylor has been?
You can literally see a life unfold through the clothes she wears and how she chooses to present herself, and by extension a project, to the world. If her lyrics represent her diary pages, her fashion for the era is its book cover. In an interview with Vogue in 2016, Taylor remarked that it was easy to look at a photo of her and roughly discern the year of its vintage. She said, “Going through different phases is one of my favorite things about fashion. I love how it can mark the passage of time. It’s similar to my songs in that way—it all helps identify where I was at in different points of my life.” It’s proof of Taylor’s driver seat position of her career, not just in directing the way her art sounds but also in what it looks like. Her fashion is part of the merchandising of her music. The more memory touch points she can use to tether her art to a specific place and time, the more engaged and connected its listeners will be. I know when I listen to Taylor’s music, I’m utterly transported. Not just through my life and how I relate to her words, but through her life as well. Taylor’s songs are a double exposure of our shared experiences, connecting us to ourselves, to her, and to each other in celebration of this art we all love.
“Going through different phases is one of my favorite things about fashion. I love how it can mark the passage of time. It’s similar to my songs in that way—it all helps identify where I was at in different points of my life.” — Taylor Swift, Vogue (2016)
So, what are my thoughts for this next chapter? One that’s presumed to be written from the vantage point of a life filled with what she describes as “happiness, fun, and magic.”
I find looking ahead is a great moment to review what’s already happened. I’ve written about how there is often an inflection point in Taylor’s style evolution. The halocline moment when two eras meet, but don’t yet fully merge. On this newsletter, I’ve pinpointed specific looks that represent what I feel is The Era First Look - the first bend in the road to usher in a new era’s fashion.
In going over the recent outings we have seen of Taylor, I admit I was a bit stumped to find one for this forthcoming 12th era. Though I know some people already have their guesses as to what that turning point look might be. Some are even nudged along by the usage of the “💘” emoji by Republic Records in recent social media posts. For my predictions, I veered away from both these paths.
I have, in fact, given some thought on the matter, thinking through not only what the album might sound like lyrically and sonically but, of course, what it might look like aesthetically. Natch!
Below you’ll find:
Two moodboards for potential aesthetic direction (I just couldn’t decide!) (You’ll see why 💚)
Release timing and promotional rollout
Sound and lyric exploration
Notes on beauty and hair styling
Brands for consideration
As with any prediction, I caveat that the goal of a post like this is not necessarily to be right. Sometimes, it might not even be to be entirely accurate! Sometimes, I approach predictions with the balanced viewpoint of what is possible / likely based on my in-depth knowledge of Taylor’s style history and also what I would personally love to see as not just a fashion observer but a fan. It’s also meant to kickstart conversation, inspiration, and fun with this community. The lead up to a new album release is one of the buzziest and most fun times in fandom. We’re all ideating and getting excited for what our next favorite album is going to look like, sound like, live like. In fact, this is the first time since 2019 we’ve even had enough notice for upcoming work to facilitate a predictions post like this. Two back-to-back surprise drops (folklore, evermore) and surprise announcements (Midnights and TTPD) will do that to you. Beyond sharing my thoughts, I most look forward to hearing yours!
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