American singer and songwriter Taylor Swift set two Spotify records for 2026 after the premiere of the extended edition „The Life of a Showgirl: Encore“.
After its release at midnight Taylor Swift became the most streamed artist on Spotify in a single day since the beginning of the year. Her new single „Patient Zero“ also set a record as the most streamed song by a female artist in a single day in 2026.
„The Life of a Showgirl: Encore“ includes four new songs: „Patient Zero“, „Cleveland!“, „Pink Clouding“ and „Babylon“. They complement the album „The Life of a Showgirl“, which Swift released in 2025.
The singer prepared her fans for the new music with a series of cryptic hints. One of them appeared in a sketch inspired by the series „Law & Order: Special Investigations“, during the „Emmy“. In the image of a detective Taylor Swift uttered a few seemingly unrelated words, from which fans extracted the hidden message „encore“.
Later, the singer first announced „Patient Zero“ and released three limited CD editions of the single. The day after, she revealed that the full extended edition with four new songs was actually about to be released.
According to Taylor Swift, the compositions were created during a trip to Sweden, where she met with her longtime collaborators, Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback. The reason was the huge commercial success of the original album.
“There was a studio and we did what we always do when we feel something: we wrote more songs“, the singer explained. According to her, the new material was created as a thank you to fans for their support for “The Life of a Showgirl“.
Taylor Swift's next big premiere will be the music video for “Patient Zero“, which is set to debut during the MTV Video Music Awards.
The video will feature actress Dakota Johnson and actor Colin Farrell alongside the singer. The cinematographer is three-time “Oscar“ winner Emmanuel Lubezki, known for his work on “Gravity“, “Birdman“ and “The Comeback“.
At the same ceremony, Taylor Swift will also receive the first-ever Artist-Director Award, which MTV honors her work as a director of her own music videos.