Taylor Swift made a splash at the 66th Grammy Awards on Sunday night by announcing that a brand new album is coming soon, much to the surprise of her fans.
As she accepted the award for best pop vocal album, Swift said she had been keeping the “secret” of this album for two years.
In her brief yet jam-packed acceptance speech for her 13th Grammy Award, she said “My brand new album comes out April 19. It’s called the ‘Tortured Poets Department.’ I’m going to go and post the cover right now backstage.”
Just as she promised, the album art was posted on her social media channels just seconds after she accepted the award. “All’s fair in love and poetry…,” read the caption.
The singer-songwriter also won Album of the Year on Sunday, making her the only artist to snag the coveted award four times in her career.
The announcement of her 11th studio album came as a surprise to Swift’s dedicated fanbase, who expected the singer-songwriter to announce the release of “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” at the awards show. Theories and speculation about Swift’s every move, outfit, social media habits and more circulated on social media days before the show and came to a head on Sunday when Swift’s website was reportedly “down.”
The site posted an error message earlier on Sunday, with one notable line of the message that the letters “hneriergrd,” which fans understood to be “red herring” once unscrambled. After online discourse about the website exploded on Sunday morning, Taylor Nation, which is essentially an extension of the star’s media team, liked tweets about the website intentionally displaying the error message.
The website’s message, along with many of the other moves Swift had been making as of late, indeed turned out to be misleading fans into thinking about “Reputation.”
The first “Reputation-coded” hint for many fans came as many of Swift’s friends, including her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, changed their profile pictures on social media to have a black and white filter, à la the original album cover for “Reputation.” Swift completed the cycle of the black and white transition on Sunday morning, much to the delight of her fans, but the switch still alluded to her announcement, as the “Tortured Poets Department” art sticks to a black-and-white scheme.
The many snake-inspired green and black looks Swift has worn over the past couple of months also alluded to an upcoming release of the re-recorded fan-favorite album.
Even with the meticulous tracking of Easter eggs and hints that all happened to be a “red herring,” fans are buzzing about the announcement — some with excitement, and some with disappointment.
The official account for Rolling Stone Magazine on X posted “you have got to be f***ing kidding” immediately following the announcement. Some Swifties, who laud the 2017 album as their favorite, echoed the sentiment.
Still, the majority of fans reacted positively to the announcement, eager to hear new music from the self-proclaimed “Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department.”
POV: Taylor announces TS 11 and you’re in a room full of swifties #Grammys #TaylorSwift #GRAMMYs2024 #thetorturedpoetsdepartment pic.twitter.com/uLgJcVeUGs
— Nicole (Taylor’s Version) (@swiftienikki21) February 5, 2024