Taylor Swift Puts Vinyl Variants of ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Up for Sale as ‘The Shiny Bug Collection’
Taylor Swift‘s latest countdown clock led to the unveiling Monday morning of two vinyl variants for her “The Life of a Showgirl” album, appearing on her webstore under the umbrella of “The Shiny Bug Collection.”
Both new LP editions share the same cover photography of Swift in a showgirl outfit, with variations in the coloring of the title logo. The biggest difference is in the vinyl itself; one edition is being described as “violet shimmer marbled” vinyl and the other is a “wintergreen and onyx marbled” long-player. The two pressings are said to be one-time-only offerings and will be for sale for 48 hours, or “while supplies last,” as they say.
That last qualification becomes important when considering that these alternate vinyl editions follow on the heels of three deluxe CD variants that went on sale last week in Swift’s webstore, each of which sold out well before the announced end time.
What Swift means with the “shiny bug” phrase is unknown, with fans guessing that all will be explained when that term inevitably shows up somewhere in the “Life of a Showgirl” lyrics… unless the superstar is just unexpectedly really into Pokemon Go references.
All of the covers for the standard and deluxe editions of the album use the showgirl motif and point back toward Swift’s stated theme for the album, which is that it reflects her experiences balancing show business and her personal life on the nearly two-year Eras Tour.
As with all the other artwork released in conjunction with the album so far, the imagery for this new cover is being jointly credited to the team of Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.
The only vinyl edition previously put up for sale is a “sweat and vanilla perfume portofino orange glitter” version that apparently counts as the standard edition of the LP, with the artwork of the singer in a bejeweled costume in the bath; that variation looks to be unlimited and remains on sale in her webstore.
In the recent past, Swift has augmented her variants with bonus tracks, including a deluxe edition of “The Tortured Poets Department” that was nearly twice as long as the standard edition, but she declared in a podcast appearance with Travis Kelce that she would not be doing that this time around. So fans can count on the differences in editions of “Showgirl” having to do with packaging and not content.
“With ‘Tortured Poets Department,’ I was like here’s a data dump of everything I thought, felt, experienced in two or three years. Here’s 31 songs. This is 12,” she said in the podcast. “There’s not a thirteenth, there’s not other ones coming. This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time. I also wanted it to be every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons, and you couldn’t take one out and it be the same album, you couldn’t add one and be… It’s just right.”
She continued, “That focus and that kind of discipline with creating an album and keeping the bar really high is something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time,” she continued. “I tend to write lots and lots of music, so it’s a temptation to release lots of music. But oftentimes, I wanted to do an album that was so focused on quality and on the theme and everything fitting together like a perfect puzzle that these 12 songs for my 12th album, I feel like we achieved that and I’m really happy about that.”
The Life of a Showgirl: The Shiny Bug Vinyl Collection is available now on my site for 48 hours❤️🔥 https://t.co/WzZQh5mMOtAlbum Producers: Max Martin, Shellback and Taylor Swift📸: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott pic.twitter.com/O2eOys1v2r
Both new LP editions share the same cover photography of Swift in a showgirl outfit, with variations in the coloring of the title logo. The biggest difference is in the vinyl itself; one edition is being described as “violet shimmer marbled” vinyl and the other is a “wintergreen and onyx marbled” long-player. The two pressings are said to be one-time-only offerings and will be for sale for 48 hours, or “while supplies last,” as they say.
That last qualification becomes important when considering that these alternate vinyl editions follow on the heels of three deluxe CD variants that went on sale last week in Swift’s webstore, each of which sold out well before the announced end time.
What Swift means with the “shiny bug” phrase is unknown, with fans guessing that all will be explained when that term inevitably shows up somewhere in the “Life of a Showgirl” lyrics… unless the superstar is just unexpectedly really into Pokemon Go references.
All of the covers for the standard and deluxe editions of the album use the showgirl motif and point back toward Swift’s stated theme for the album, which is that it reflects her experiences balancing show business and her personal life on the nearly two-year Eras Tour.
As with all the other artwork released in conjunction with the album so far, the imagery for this new cover is being jointly credited to the team of Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.
The only vinyl edition previously put up for sale is a “sweat and vanilla perfume portofino orange glitter” version that apparently counts as the standard edition of the LP, with the artwork of the singer in a bejeweled costume in the bath; that variation looks to be unlimited and remains on sale in her webstore.
In the recent past, Swift has augmented her variants with bonus tracks, including a deluxe edition of “The Tortured Poets Department” that was nearly twice as long as the standard edition, but she declared in a podcast appearance with Travis Kelce that she would not be doing that this time around. So fans can count on the differences in editions of “Showgirl” having to do with packaging and not content.
“With ‘Tortured Poets Department,’ I was like here’s a data dump of everything I thought, felt, experienced in two or three years. Here’s 31 songs. This is 12,” she said in the podcast. “There’s not a thirteenth, there’s not other ones coming. This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time. I also wanted it to be every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons, and you couldn’t take one out and it be the same album, you couldn’t add one and be… It’s just right.”
She continued, “That focus and that kind of discipline with creating an album and keeping the bar really high is something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time,” she continued. “I tend to write lots and lots of music, so it’s a temptation to release lots of music. But oftentimes, I wanted to do an album that was so focused on quality and on the theme and everything fitting together like a perfect puzzle that these 12 songs for my 12th album, I feel like we achieved that and I’m really happy about that.”
The Life of a Showgirl: The Shiny Bug Vinyl Collection is available now on my site for 48 hours❤️🔥 https://t.co/WzZQh5mMOtAlbum Producers: Max Martin, Shellback and Taylor Swift📸: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott pic.twitter.com/O2eOys1v2r