Will ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Fans Get An Exclusive Sneak Peek At Taylor Swift’s New Album?
If my social media newsfeeds have anything to say, it’s this: we are all Team Conrad, and Taylor Swift is cooking up something big for fans as she prepares to announce her next album.
This morning, at 12:12 a.m. EST, Travis and Jason Kelce released a clip of an upcoming episode of their podcast New Heights. But this snippet was much different than what you’d usually expect from the NFL-centered podcast: instead of the brothers discussing football, Travis Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift, makes an appearance. In the clip, she holds what appears to be her upcoming album—though the album itself is blurred out—and reveals that it will be called The Life of a Showgirl.
While the episode, which drops on Wednesday, August 13, will likely reveal more details about the album, Swift loves nothing more than leaving a mystery for her fans to solve. She’s notorious for her Easter Eggs (and her fans are just as notorious for putting together the puzzle pieces), which makes me think she has plenty of surprises in store for us.
You might be wondering: What does this have to do with The Summer I Turned Pretty?
As anyone who watches the show knows, creator Jenny Han uses a lot of Taylor Swift’s music to illustrate important beats of the show. While not every episode gets a Swift anthem, it’s pretty close. But it’s not that just Han likes Swift’s music—it’s that she’s literally worked with Swift to release specific music for the show.
For instance, before 1989’s rerelease, Swift gave the show permission to use “This Love (Taylor’s Version)”, subsequently dropping the single; the show also used “Back To December (Taylor’s Version)” its second season trailer before Speak Now was rereleased. And don’t even get me started on the cinematic version of folklore‘s August.
All of this is to say that Jenny Han and Taylor Swift have an already existing relationship when it comes to licensing songs that are otherwise waiting for release. So it’s interesting that this album announcement not only comes out in the midst of The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s season 3 hype, but that it’s also coming on a Wednesday—the same day that Prime Video drops the new episodes of the show. Considering Han is also a huge fan of these Swiftian-style Easter eggs, it’s hard to completely brush it off as a coincidence.
(The Summer I Turned Pretty fanatic in me also finds it interesting that this announcement is coming after the episode that posits Conrad as the show’s true romantic hero, ultimately changing the direction of the rest of the season—and do you know what else is interesting? So far, Conrad hasn’t had a single Swift song associated with him this season, probably because, up until now, Belly stopped viewing him as a romantic option. And we can reasonably assume that’s about to change.)
I’m not saying we’re getting a new song as soon as this Wednesday, though that’s certainly a possibility. But what I am saying is that it’s entirely likely that Taylor Swift will debut one of the singles on the show. While it would make Swifties and The Summer I Turned Pretty fans absolutely feral (and let’s be real, there’s a lot of crossover in those fan bases), it’s also just an incredibly smart business move on both Han and Swift’s part—Swift fans would be more likely to tune into the show for the song, and Swift would be cashing in on the show’s mainstream hype. There really is no losing here for anyone.
So while this is all speculation, I’m calling it now: We’re going to hear at least a snippet of The Life of a Showgirl sometime in this final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, and probably at a pretty pivotal moment. So yes, Conrad girls—I’ll put all my money on the bet that this upcoming album, much like the upcoming season, really is for you.
