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Phoenix is the twelfth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on June 20, 2025, through Republic Records. The critically acclaimed album topped the charts and produced singles including "Alive", "All Night", and "Who's Laughing Now?".
Background[]
Swift released her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, in April 2024 to mixed reviews but widespread chart success, the album spending its first twelve weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The singer began to work on new music soon after she had turned in the album.
Swift was seen leaving Electric Lady Studios in winter and spring 2025, confirming that she was working on new music. In fact, she had been working on Phoenix since 2024, finished writing the album by the fall of that year and finished recording it in early 2025.
In an Apple Music songwriters' interview that Swift did to promote the album, she revealed some details about the writing and recording process for the album. She said that like her last few albums, she had mostly written and recorded the songs alone with her frequent collaborators, Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff. She revealed that the first song she wrote for the album was "Home Is Where The Heart Is", which was actually written before she had submitted The Tortured Poets Department (2024). She wanted to conserve the number of upbeat songs on The Tortured Poets Department, but she said that she loved "Home Is Where The Heart Is" so much that she saved it for Phoenix.
When asked about the small amount of time between the release of The Tortured Poets Department (April 2024) and Phoenix (June 2025), Swift said that she had just been writing a lot of music throughout 2024 and early 2025 and wanted to continue sharing it with the fans. She also cited the experience of connecting with her fans on the Eras Tour (2023-24) as a reason to release the album sooner rather than later, so that her fans could experience it soon after she had finished it.
Announcement[]
The album was first teased in early January 2025 when Swift posted an image of her in the studio and captioned it with an orange heart, hinting at new music. Starting in mid-March, after the promotion of Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version) had died down a bit, Taylor Nation began to end every post or comment with an orange heart emoji, leading fans to be suspicious of a new era starting.
On April 16, 2025, fans noticed that in the official lyrics for the song "You're Losing Me" on Spotify and Apple Music, the word 'phoenix' was in all caps, teasing the album title. On April 17, Swift changed her profile picture on social media to an image that would later be revealed to be part of the Phoenix photoshoot. The album was formally announced at midnight on April 18 on social media, with the caption: "It is my pleasure to announce that my 12th album, PHOENIX, will be available on June 20th! I am so excited for you all to hear what I've been working on for the past year!" along with the album cover and a link to pre-save it on Swift's official website. The album was revealed to have fourteen tracks, but track names were not revealed until later.
Release and promotion[]
Cinnamon Edition Vinyl
Four versions of the standard album became available on Swift's website soon after the album's announcement: the standard orange edition, the cinnamon edition, the marigold edition, and the champagne edition. The variants contained no bonus tracks but the exclusively colored vinyls or CDs and unique photo cards. All four versions were available to pre-order on vinyl or CD, and the standard edition was also available to pre-order for digital download and streaming.
To reveal the album's tracklist, Swift began posting puzzles on her social media, starting a month before the album's release, on May 20. The puzzles were crosswords in which the clues related to Swift and her discography. Once someone had filled in all the boxes, certain ones would light up in orange and spell out the names of the tracks. This had a fun twist, as a player could tell the general length of the track title before it was revealed by the size of the puzzle.
The last song to be revealed from the album was the ninth track, titled "Need". Many fans immediately connected this to the title of a song that was scrapped from Lover (2019) but had leaked in 2023 and become a fan favorite, with many fans wishing that Swift would release it as a single similar to how she released "All of the Girls You Loved Before", another Lover outtake. Some fans speculated that it was the same song, and Swift confirmed this later that day on her social media saying, "A lot of you guys really loved this song and I thought that it really fit this album, so the updated & modified version will be yours on June 20th!" The new version of the song contained slightly different production and some changed and added lyrics.
The album became available to pre-save on Spotify on June 3, revealing the track lengths. Additionally, on June 15, the songs' writing credits were revealed. Before the album dropped, billboards could be seen in Times Square as well as in a few other cities revealing lyrics from the album.
For Swift's previous two albums, there had been surprise drops a few hours after the main album released containing extra songs (Midnights 3am Edition, dropped at 3am; The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, dropped at 2am) and many fans had noticed that these drops were seemingly forming a countdown. This theory was confirmed when Phoenix: Risen, a surprise deluxe edition of Phoenix, dropped at 1am on its release day containing six extra tracks. This countdown was notable as it appeared to be counting down to Swift's thirteenth album, and 13 is her lucky number.
Similar to the release of The Tortured Poets Department, Swift did not make any appearances on talk shows to promote the album, but she did do an Apple Music songwriters' interview, like she had previously done for evermore, in which she discussed some of the songs on the album and her writing process for it. Swift released remixes of "Alive" on streaming services on July 4.
Phoenix: Risen Vinyl
On August 15, 2025, physical editions of Phoenix: Risen went on sale. On November 7, 2025, a second physical/digital download deluxe version of the album was released containing five acoustic remixes of tracks on the album.
Music and production[]
Phoenix is primarily a pop record, with elements of pop-rock and alternative pop. Songs like "Alive", "All Night", and "Happier" have a more traditional pop production often compared to Swift's seventh studio album Lover (2019). Swift also experiments with folk-pop on songs like "The Garden" and "The Path", while pop-rock is present on "Who's Laughing Now?" and "Love Me, Leave Me". Critics tended to favor the more pop and pop-rock-influenced songs, with one saying that "while the mixture of folk and pop worked for the mellow Tortured Poets Department, the genre seems bland on this album that is so free and full of life". Songs like "Wake Up" and "Reverie" incorporate elements of dream-pop.
The album was mainly produced by Swift, Jack Antonoff, and Aaron Dessner, with additional production from Sounwave on "Alive" and Louis Bell on "Need". Though Antonoff is famous for his synth-pop production, synth-pop is widely absent on the album and instead Swift leans more into rock and alternative-inspired sounds.
Concept and visuals[]
Themes and content[]
Swift stated that the name represented her feeling alive again after getting together with her boyfriend Travis Kelce. Even though there is no title track, imagery of phoenixes, fire, and the idea of rebirth is woven throughout the album. The song "As Good As This", also references phoenixes, and the song "Alive" talks about the idea of coming back to life, though it does not explicitly say the name of the album in its lyrics.
The album deals with themes of love, passion, freedom, and joy. Many critics and fans alike agree that it is her happiest album since Lover (2019).
An example photo from the Phoenix photoshoot.
Artwork and aesthetics[]
The album's primary color is orange, representing fire and the idea of rebirth. Many promotional images for the album featured a distinct orange tint, including the cover, which shows Swift on an orange background, slightly turned away from the camera, with the album titled printed in bold black letters across the bottom of the center of the cover. Most of the album's promotional images from the photoshoot featured Swift alone on an either empty or almost empty background, with heavy orange or purple tints.
Reception and commercial performance[]
Critical reception[]
Phoenix received rave reviews from critics. Many praised the album as being "fun but not over-the-top" and complimented the way Swift was able to make a feel-good happy album while not writing many bubblegum-pop "glitter gel pen" songs. Swift's use of dream-pop on the songs "Wake Up" and "Reverie" was also praised.
The album was awarded with a glowing 8.6/10 review on Pitchfork, and got a five-star review from both Rolling Stone and NME.
The lead single, "Alive", was not regarded as the best song on the album, but as a solid choice for a lead single as it was upbeat, reasonably catchy, and represented the album well. Many fans lamented that the fan favorite "As Good As This" or the Sabrina Carpenter collaboration "All Night" were not picked as the first single, though "All Night" would be promoted as the album's second single later that summer.
The album and its singles appeared on many year-end lists of the best songs and albums of 2025. Billboard named it the best album of 2025, and Rolling Stone and The Independent, among other publications, ranked the album in their top ten. "Alive" and "All Night" also made quite a few appearances in the top tens of similar rankings for the best songs of the year.
Chart performance[]
The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, staying there for six weeks in a row, and filled the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100. The lead single, "Alive", stayed at number one for three weeks.
In terms of numbers, the second and third singles, "All Night" and "Who's Laughing Now?" were more successful than "Alive", selling more units and charting for longer. "All Night" initially peaked at #2 on the Hot 100 and returned to the charts after its release as a single, though during its second time on the chart, it only ever reached #4. "Who's Laughing Now?" originally peaked at #5 and later began to chart on its own in September 2025, eventually reaching #2 and pushing Swift to promote it as the next single for the album.
Swift revealed that she had been planning to promote "As Good As This" as the next single after "All Night" but "Who's Laughing Now?" was more successful, even though many fans preferred "As Good As This". Eventually, "Happier" was chosen as the fourth single due to its resurgence on the Billboard charts, where it reached a new peak of #3 (Its original peak was its debut at #8.)
Awards and nominations[]
Phoenix gained Swift five nominations at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards in 2026. The album itself was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album; "Alive" was nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year; and "All Night" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Of these, Swift won the awards for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance as well as Best Pop Vocal Album, bringing her total number of Grammy Awards to seventeen. Swift also won two awards at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards: "All Night" for Best Collaboration and Phoenix for Pop Album of the Year. Other awards won by the album include Best Music Video for "Need" at the American Music Awards in 2025 and Song of the Year at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards for "Alive".
Singles[]
June 20, 2025
August 29, 2025
October 4, 2025
March 20, 2026
Promotional singles[]
June 25, 2025
February 25, 2026
Track listing[]
| Standard edition | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Producer(s) | Length |
| 1. | "Wake Up" | Taylor Swift | Swift · Jack Antonoff | 2:34 |
| 2. | "Alive" | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff · Mark Spears | 3:29 |
| 3. | "All Night" (featuring Sabrina Carpenter) | Swift · Carpenter · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 4:01 |
| 4. | "As Good As This" | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 3:49 |
| 5. | "Our Last" | Swift · Aaron Dessner | Swift · Dessner | 4:13 |
| 6. | "Shooting Star" | Swift | Swift · Antonoff · Dessner | 2:59 |
| 7. | "Morning Light" | Swift · Dessner | Swift · Dessner · Antonoff | 4:23 |
| 8. | "Reverie" | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 3:30 |
| 9. | "Need" | Swift · Louis Bell · Frank Dukes | Swift · Bell · Antonoff | 3:16 |
| 10. | "Happier" | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 3:27 |
| 11. | "The Garden" | Swift · Dessner | Swift · Dessner | 3:55 |
| 12. | "Who's Laughing Now?" | Swift · Antonoff · Dessner | Swift · Antonoff · Dessner | 3:18 |
| 13. | "Home Is Where The Heart Is" | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 3:38 |
| 14. | "The Path" | Swift | Swift · Dessner | 5:22 |
| Total length: | 51:54 | |||
| Phoenix: Risen | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Producer(s) | Length |
| 15. | "Jealous" | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 3:18 |
| 16. | "Golden Age" | Swift · Dessner | Swift · Dessner | 2:51 |
| 17. | "TNT" | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff · | 3:51 |
| 18. | "Meant For Me" | Swift · Antonoff · Dessner | Swift · Antonoff · Dessner | 3:52 |
| 19. | "Who Left, Who Stayed" | Swift · Dessner | Swift · Dessner | 4:01 |
| 20. | "Love Me, Leave Me" | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 3:28 |
| Total length: | 1:13:16 | |||
| Phoenix: Risen | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Producer(s) | Length |
| 15. | "Wake Up" (acoustic version) | Swift | Swift · Antonoff | 2:56 |
| 16. | "Alive" (acoustic version) | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 3:40 |
| 17. | "As Good As This" (acoustic version) | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 4:05 |
| 18. | "Reverie" (acoustic version) | Swift · Antonoff | Swift · Antonoff | 3:49 |
| 19. | "Need" (acoustic version) | Swift · Louis Bell · Frank Dukes | Swift · Antonoff | 3:35 |
| Total length: | 1:09:08 | |||
Notes[]
- "Who's Laughing Now?" samples an audio clip from 2012 of Swift saying "No, I just put those on my albums" after being asked if she had ever written a song so mean that she couldn't release it.
- "The Path" samples "The Alchemy", a song included on Swift's 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department.
Outtakes[]
Many of these songs were registered in the GEMA database but little is known about them.
- "Fireplace"
- "Never Look Back"
- "Out of the Fire" (later released on the From The Vault EP)
- "Chains"
- "Postcard"
- "New Dawn" (later released on Legacy)
- "When Autumn Comes Back Around"
- "The Contract"
- “Forget Me?”
Editions[]
The cover of Phoenix: Risen
The cover of Phoenix & Acoustic Remixes
Upon the album's announcement, four versions of the standard edition were made available to pre-order on vinyl and CD: the standard orange edition, the Cinnamon Edition, the Marigold Edition, and the Champagne Edition. Each vinyl and CD matched the color of the edition. The names of the non-standard variants were all taken from lyrics on the album. The different variants did not contain bonus tracks, but they did contain unique photo cards and the exclusive colored vinyl or CD.
Phoenix: Risen, a deluxe edition of the album, surprise-dropped at 1am EST on June 20, containing six extra tracks. Swift noted in her social media post about the deluxe edition that these were left off of the original album because they didn't quite fit the theme, but she still wanted to share them with the fans. Physical copies went on sale starting on August 15, 2025. "Love Me, Leave Me", the final track, became a fan favorite and was eventually made a promotional single in February 2026.
Additionally, a deluxe version with acoustic remixes of "Wake Up", "Alive", "As Good As This", "Reverie", and "Need" was released on November 7, 2025. The remixes were not only new music paired with the vocal take from the original song, but actual acoustic re-recordings of the songs.
Music videos[]
Four music videos were released for Phoenix: "Alive", "Need", "All Night", and "Who's Laughing Now?". Swift shot the videos for "Alive" and "Need" before the album released. The video for "Alive" was released along with the album on June 20, 2025, and the one for "Need" accompanied its promotional single release on June 25. The videos for "All Night" and "Who's Laughing Now?" were released alongside their releases as singles in August and October 2025 respectively.
Video descriptions[]
"Alive": The video for "Alive" begins with a close-up of Swift's face with her eyes closed, seemingly asleep or dead. As the intro of the song plays, the camera zooms out and we see that she is in a white hospital room, similar to the one shown in the video for "Fortnight". As the song goes on, the screen cuts between Swift in the hospital and what seem to be flashbacks or memories of Swift with a man, the face of whom we never see in the video.
Throughout the song, the sleeping/dead Swift in the hospital bed seems to grow more agitated and fidgety and eventually, at the end of the song's bridge, wakes up with a gasp and a man comes rushing into the room. He helps her out of the bed and they walk outside, and it is revealed that what seemed to be flashbacks actually took place in the future as the pair of them walk out onto the same street seen earlier in the video.
"Need": The "Need" video starts with Swift alone in a bedroom. Sounds of thunder can be heard from outside the window and Swift is unable to sleep. The video then cuts to a man walking on the street outside in the rain as Swift looks out the window. At the beginning of the song's second chorus, Swift finally decides to give up trying to sleep and goes outside, only to find the man just outside her door. She grabs his hand and they run out into the dark, empty street, dancing in the rain before eventually parting ways with a smile.
"All Night": In the video for "All Night", Swift and Carpenter are seen partying and drinking in a club with friends and consistently ignoring calls and messages from a man and eventually tossing their phones away. This is interspersed with some clips of the man in question, sitting in the front seat of a car, looking annoyed. Eventually, the pair of them leave and see the man in the car parked outside. He rolls down the window and is about to say something but the two friends pretend they can't see or hear him and continue singing as they leave him behind.
"Who's Laughing Now?": The "Who's Laughing Now?" video adopts a more fantastical aesthetic as it opens with Swift wearing a cloak in a cramped stone room with a door that is locked and bolted shut. The video then cuts to a faceless figure sitting on top of a throne surrounded by skulls.
Six glass cases sit on a table beside him, each containing a diamond in the colors that represent Swift’s first six albums. These represent how her first six albums were sold and stolen from her without her consent.
We cut back to Swift and she is able to escape her prison by fighting off a guard that comes to deliver food to her. She then runs down a narrow passageway and ends up in the throne room we had previously seen. Before the figure on the throne can stop her, she runs forward and smashes the case containing the golden diamond, representing Fearless, which she grabs. A shower of golden sparks explodes from the case and the entire room rumbles as part of the pile of skulls collapses and some debris falls from the ceiling.
Deftly dodging the figure's blows, she manages to smash the cases containing the red, purple, blue, and black diamonds, taking them with her and causing more damage in the room, with parts of the roof caving in. She grabs the final case containing the final diamond (green, representing her self-titled debut) and runs for an exit that has been created by the crumbling walls. She takes one glance back at the figure down below, who is still trying to grab her and the diamonds she had freed from his cases, before shattering the final case and jumping out into the open. She lands on soft grass and turns to see that the castle she had been kept in had crumbled completely to the ground, with the figure still trapped inside. The video ends as the camera zooms in on the final green diamond lying on top of the wreckage.
Phoenix: Live In Concert[]
The poster for the concert
Main article: Phoenix: Live In Concert
Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour concluded in December 2024 after two years and over 150 shows. Because of this, she chose not to do a full tour for Phoenix. Instead, she promoted the album with a one-off concert at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on August 22, 2025.
The concert was announced on July 1, 2025. It contained a 22-song set list and featured a guest appearance from Sabrina Carpenter.
Gallery[]
Photoshoot[]
Album covers[]
Physical copies[]
Trivia[]
- This is Swift's sixth explicit album, following folklore, evermore, Red (Taylor's Version), Midnights, and The Tortured Poets Department with "All Night", "As Good As This", "Who's Laughing Now?", "The Path", "Who Left, Who Stayed", and "Love Me, Leave Me" being marked as explicit.
- Swift has confirmed that she wrote around 40 songs for the album and ended up having to cut down the number of songs by half for the final album.
- The longest song on the album is "The Path" at 5:22, and the shortest song is the opening track, "Wake Up", at 2:34.
- The full standard album leaked on June 18, 2025.
- This is Swift's second album to have 14 tracks on its standard edition, following Speak Now.
- Woodvale was also planned to have 14 tracks, but it was scrapped and never released.
- This is Swift's second album to have 20 tracks on its deluxe edition, following Midnights (3am Edition).
- This is Swift's first album where she doesn't say any person's name.
- Track 13, "Home Is Where The Heart Is", references a lyric in Swift's 2019 song "London Boy", in which she says "they say home is where the heart is, but that's not where mine lives."
- Track 11, "The Garden", references a lyric in Swift's 2024 song "I Hate It Here", in which she says "I hate it here so I will go to secret gardens in my mind". Swift would later state in her Apple Music interview for Phoenix that she was inspired to write "The Garden" after realizing that there was more she had wanted to say in "I Hate It Here".
- The names of the non-standard album editions are all taken from lyrics on the album.
- The Cinnamon Edition comes from "As Good As This" ("Scarlet lipstick, high heels, lavender, cinnamon")
- The Marigold Edition comes from "The Garden" ("Running in a field of marigolds, hair let loose, leave behind the world")
- The Champagne Edition comes from "Shooting Star" ("Down another glass of champagne")
| v • e Phoenix | |
|---|---|
| Phoenix - standard edition | |
| Phoenix: Risen | |
| Concert | |