Taylor Swift breaks records anew with 'The Life of a Showgirl'

By The Associated Press

Published Oct 4, 2025 12:09 pm

At A Glance

• Spotify announced Friday that Swift's album surpassed six million pre-saves on their platform to become the most pre-saved album in its history.

NEW YORK (AP) — Lights, camera, action. Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” has arrived.

Are you ready for it?

Swift announced her latest era back in August, when she began teasing the release.   

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of its drop date: how to stream, which variants exist, and of course, how the album came together. Enjoy the show!

“The Life of a Showgirl” is streaming on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

Fans were able to pre-save the album ahead of its release on Oct. 3. Pre-saving ensures the new music automatically appears in a fan’s library the moment it is available. It is also a way for an artist to promote streams ahead of the drop date.

Spotify announced Friday that Swift’s album surpassed six million pre-saves on their platform to become the most pre-saved album in its history.  

The previous title holder? Her 2024 album “The Tortured Poets Department.”

“The Life of a Showgirl” also became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day in 2025 — and in its first 11 hours of release.

Also on Friday, Amazon Music announced “The Life of a Showgirl” broke the record for most streams in its first 24 hours, globally.

In addition to the many streaming options, there will also be a digital-download variant of “The Life of a Showgirl” available via iTunes, featuring a new cover image and a nearly three-minute “exclusive video from Taylor herself detailing inspirations behind the album” labeled “A Look Behind the Curtain.”

Target is once again a major partner with Swift. Their stores are carrying three CD variants, titled as “It’s Frightening,” “It’s Rapturous” and “It’s Beautiful” editions. There is also an exclusive vinyl release, “The Crowd Is Your King” edition in “summertime spritz pink shimmer vinyl.” Many Target locations will remain open past midnight on the day of release for superfans to pick up in real time.

There are a number of other vinyl variants as well: “The Tiny Bubble in Champagne Collection,” which features two vinyl variants described as “under bright lights pearlescent vinyl” and “red lipstick & lace transparent vinyl.”   

There is also “The Baby That’s Show Business Collection,” in two colorways: “lovely bouquet golden vinyl” and “lakeside beach blue sparkle vinyl.”

Then there’s “The Shiny Bug Collection” in “violet shimmer marbled vinyl” and “wintergreen and onyx marbled vinyl.”

And of course, there is the standard LP and cassette, in “sweat and vanilla perfume Portofino orange vinyl.”

Artwork varies throughout.

Philippines Through Times

DID YOU KNOW???

In the Philippines, an expected massive earthquake is named “The Big One”. The Big One is predicted to have a 7.2 large-magnitude and high-intensity. The earthquake is predicted to hit Metro Manila from the West Valley Fault, which is 100 km in length.

Source: Phivolcs

All reactions:

2.7K2.7K

24 HR. LOCALIZED WEATHER FORECAST FOR DAVAO REGION

ISSUED AT 5:00 AM OCTOBER 06, 2025

Valid Until 5:00 AM TOMORROW

SYNOPSIS:

TC Information

ACTIVE TROPICAL CYCLONE OUTSIDE PAR AS OF 3:00 AM TODAY

TROPICALSTORM HALONG {2522}

LOCATION: 2,105 KM EAST NORTHEAST OF EXTREME NORTHERN LUZON (25.3°N, 141.8°E)

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS: 100 KM/H NEAR THE CENTER

GUSTINESS: UP TO 125 KM/H

MOVEMENT: NORTHWESTWARD SLOWLY

Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) affecting Southern Mindanao.

Localized Thunderstorms affecting Davao Region.

FORECAST:

DAVAO REGION will experience partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers and thunderstorms due Localized Thunderstorms. Possible flashfloods or landslides during severe thunderstorms.

Light to Moderate winds coming from the Northeast to Northwest will prevail and the coastal waters will be Slight to Moderate.

(0.6 to 1.5 meters wave height)

KAUGALINGONG PINULUNGAN:

Ang Dakbayan sa DAVAO ug ubang dapit sa Davao Region makasinati sa panalagsa nga pagdag.um ngadto sa mapanganurun nga kalangitan inubanan sa PAT-AK PAT-AK nga pag-ulan, kilat ug pagpanalugdug tungod sa Localized Thunderstorms. Posible ang mga pagbaha og landslides kung dunay kusog nga pag ulan.

Hinay ngadto sa Kasarangan nga huyop sa hangin nga magagikan sa Amihanang Sidlakan ngadto sa Amihanang Kasadpan nga direksyon ang mupasulabi, ug ang kadagatan mahimong Hapsay ngadto sa Kasarangan ang balod.

(0.6 to 1.5 meters wave height).

OVER DAVAO CITY:

Temperature Today: 25˚C to 32˚C

Sunrise (Sidlak) Today: 5:29 AM

Sunset (Salop) Today: 5:30 PM

For more information and queries, please call telephone for local number (082)234-0890 and (088)555-0485 for regional or log on to bagong.pagasa.dost.gov.ph…/regional…/Mindanao-PRSD or join our Facebook Group at Mindanao PRSD (Regional Office) or PAGASA Davao (Local).

See translation

12

Years I lost in the haze

 

It was in 2021 when I first learned how to write.

My mama prepared a table in our small garden, one with Christmas lights and a tiny bahay kubo decoration. I would sit there with my old, heavy laptop—all its keys creating sounds similar to that of a typewriter whenever I am immersed in my campus journalistic work. It was still at the height of the pandemic, when classes were largely remote and press endeavors had to be done online. I would sleep at six in the evening, wake up at four just before sunrise, make myself a mug of instant coffee, and listen to Chopin or Mozart or maybe Beethoven—it was my ritual for writing. I was familiar with the scent of midnight and the sight of daylight’s first fall on the ground.

Four years have passed since then. I am in college today at Los Baños, and I rarely come home to Rizal. The very few times I visit, this house always changes. The table I used to have in our small garden is no longer here. My office is now on a newly constructed balcony, where I can easily see the vast azure. The old chessboard set my dad gave me on my 14th birthday, with all the letters and paintings from old lovers inside it, is no longer under my bed in my room. The mountain in Montalban looks a little bit taller, complementing the sunrise even better. My table is no longer the table that seemed like it could break at the slightest motion, and my laptop does not sound like an ancient typewriter anymore.

Like countless iskolar ng bayan who travelled from their distant provinces to Laguna for college, I entered the university with courage. There was this feeling of certainty that I could just lose and find myself—be homesick, be hurt, drink in Puesto at night, jog at Pili Drive in the morning, join mobilizations in front of Oblation or at Carabao Park. I felt this sensation, this pride that made me think I could mold my world into what I want it to be at the University of the Philippines. “Go on a journey,” I would imagine Mozart telling me from the skies, for a writer whose inspirations still partly root from classical music.

What I failed to realize is that parts of me had already been lost long before university. The were years I lost in the haze when everything broke, dreams and friendships and love.

Long years inside the pandemic changed me. I learned to pretend I was more mature. My hair grew so much longer, and I became more conscious about my appearance. I fell in love, got broken, then fell in love again in April. I wrote poems and unfinished anthologies, then got broken again. I met the music of The Ridleys, I listened to Aphrodite and Germany, and Rome. I believed in love.

I miss writing poetry. I miss drafting editorials on issues that made me look smart when published in our student paper. I miss exchanging emails that make my heart flutter. I miss walking around campus, waiting for a jeep near Katipunan, navigating the roads of Anonas and Molave—things in my past life that I, in retrospect, took for granted and eventually lost.Maybe this is just a testament of what someone once told me, “Tomorrow is not certain, and it’s a dreadful thought to wake up without today’s warmth.” I miss the café I used to stay at, which had already closed three years ago.

There is this uncomfortable feeling of grief for the things and people that I loved. I would often ask myself, what about the essays and poems and prose I wrote for those who would no longer care to read them? What of the words left unsaid and the screams still echoing? I could have written more. Reminiscing now, I see how I was so young three years ago before the pandemic, and I was so disillusioned when suddenly times changed, and I was older—I had to act older. This feeling has recurred lately. I would initially tell myself, “This discomfort is temporary.” Things have no permanence, and I cannot cling to stillness.

But maybe, parts of me still willingly let themselves get stuck in these recollections, despite the initial preconception, because they are reminders of a life I once lived.

I remember once reading an article that said, “Home need not be a place.” Indeed, home, now, feels more metaphorical than physical. That little boy—who is familiar with the scent of midnight and the sight of daylight’s first break, who loves to write on the table his mama prepared for him—does not know this.

Perhaps this is why, since childhood, I have always been fond of constructing sentences that imply my hopes for events that are no longer likely to happen, that are just absurd and outright impossible.I want to visit and relive the past again.I want to guide that little boy today, to show him the reality of constant shifts and changes, of heartbreaks and years of broken things.