Taylor Swift's next album will be called The Life of a Showgirl, according to an early-morning surprise reveal.

Swifties have been eagerly awaiting news of her next move since her record-breaking, 21-month Eras Tour wrapped up in December. But the anticipation — and online speculation — spiked on Monday, after the star released a series of cryptic social media posts.

First, an official Instagram account run by Swift's team posted a carousel of 12 photos of various moments and outfits from her tour. Each of Swift's albums — or eras — is associated with a specific color, and in each photo of the slideshow she's wearing orange.

"Thinking about when she said 'See you next era…'" the caption read, sending fans into a frenzy.

Around the same time, the New Heights podcast — which is hosted by Swift's boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs' tight end Travis Kelce and his brother, retired fellow footballer Jason Kelce — teased Wednesday's upcoming episode, writing on Instagram that it will have a "VERY special guest."

The accompanying graphic shows them sitting on either side of a suspiciously Swift-shaped silhouette, against a sparkly orange background.

And then, on Monday night, Swift's official website quietly put up a shimmering orange countdown clock set to expire at 12:12 a.m. on Tuesday.

Swift has become known for carefully inserting Easter eggs and hidden messages — including numerical patterns — into everything from her lyrics to liner notes to fashion choices. And so far, she's released 11 studio albums.

So the dozen-centric deadline further fueled fans' hopes and wildest dreams of a new album, either the announcement of an upcoming release or the record itself (as was the case with 2020's Folklore and Evermore, and the surprise album The Tortured Poets Department last April).

Just after midnight on Tuesday morning, Swift made it official, in a clip posted by New Heights.

"So I wanted to show you something," she tells the Kelce brothers, opening up a case with her initials emblazoned in orange, and pulling out a record with the cover blurred out. "This is my brand new album, The Life of a Showgirl."

The album's cover art, track list and even release date are still a mystery — leaving fans even hungrier for what they hope will be more details in the New Heights episode to be released on Wednesday evening.

In the meantime, the The Life of a Showgirl vinyl, cassette, CD and poster are available for pre-sale on Swift's website. It says they will ship before Oct. 13, but cautions: "this is not the release date."

The Life of a Showgirl will be Swift's first new album since she bought back the rights to her master recordings in May from Shamrock Capital. The private equity group acquired them from music executive Scooter Braun, who bought them in 2019 when he acquired Swift's first music label, Big Machine Label Group. That sparked her yearslong quest to re-record her first six albums, releasing them as "Taylor's Version" alongside previously unreleased vault tracks.

In Swift's announcement about acquiring her masters, she said the last two albums she had planned to re-release — Reputation and her self-titled debut — "can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right."

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