Taylor Swift's new Encore edition adds four songs to an album already sold in dozens of versions. Savvy business for superfans, or unfair pressure to buy again?
The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore adds Patient Zero, Cleveland!, Pink Clouding and Babylon to Swift's 2025 album. Forbes calls it the album's 29th version; a Nerdist count that includes digital downloads puts it at 35.
What happened
On 23 September Taylor Swift announced The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, an expanded edition of her 2025 album with four new songs, due out on Friday with pre-orders open straight away. Swift said the songs were written on a trip to Sweden with her collaborators Max Martin and Shellback and were "born out of pure gratitude" for fans' response to the album. Forbes says the original release came in 11 CD, 11 vinyl and six cassette or digital variants, and the album set a record for first-week sales.
Why people disagree
Supporters say nobody is forced to buy every edition: collectors want the variants, and new songs are a thank-you to fans. Critics, including a Nerdist commentary, say edition after edition leans on devoted, often young, fans to keep paying, and inflates sales figures to chase chart records, a charge Forbes notes was also made against the original release.
What's still unclear
It isn't clear how much of the album's record sales came from fans buying several versions. Counts of how many editions exist vary, and it is unknown whether chart compilers will change how multiple editions are counted.
Sources
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