Taylor Swift Announces New Album On The VMA Stage

Taylor Swift announced a brand new album during her acceptance speech at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards.

Swift (predictably) took home the coveted Video of the Year award for her critically acclaimed project, All Too Well: The Short Film. That’s when she surprise-announced upcoming music.

“I had sort of made up my mind,” she said toward the end of her speech, “that, if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand new album comes out October 21. And I will tell you more at midnight…”

And so she did. A few hours after her tease, the iconic songstress posted the album cover and a signature poetic description of the body of work on her social media.

She wrote, “We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears. We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t — right this minute — about to make some fateful life-altering mistake.”

Swift continued, “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching — hoping that maybe, just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves.”

She finished off the formal announcement with a playful, “Meet me at midnight.”

The film inspired by her hit ten-minute version of fan-favorite Red track “All Too Well” also won Best Direction and Best Longform Video. The Grammy-winner notably became the first artist to win Video of the Year three times.

Before Swift’s Sunday night announcement, fans on TikTok and Twitter predicted that she might announce Reputation: Taylor’s Version at this year’s VMAs. They cited a variety of possible hints.

August 24, 2022 marked five years since the release of Reputation lead single “Look What You Made Me Do.” Since recording contracts generally only allow artists to re-record after five years have passed, fans suspected the VMAs could kick off the second Reputation era.

In addition, Swift’s stunning, sparkly Oscar de la Renta number seemed like an homage to one of her “Look What You Made Me Do” music video outfits.

Fans believe that music video outfit to be a reference to her 2009 VMAs dress. Kanye West infamously interrupted Swift’s Best Video by a Female Artist acceptance speech at the award show 13 years ago, igniting an ongoing feud.

Swifties believe the conflict between West and Swift was part of her inspiration for Reputation.

Though Taylor’s version of her sixth studio album might not be coming just yet, Swift’s fans were right about the singer announcing new tunes at the VMAs.

Midnights is available for pre-order now.