Taylor Swift was seen at Electric Lady Studios in New York yesterday. Maybe gives us some insight about her schedule and plans. Taylor was working on Cats near the end of 2018. Production continues in London. It’s a large ensemble so she’s obviously not required to be there the whole time. She was in LA for the Globes right after New Year’s, which she spent in New York so, presumably, if there’s been any Cats activity, it wasn’t for all that extended of a period of time. Since Cats is a musical, Taylor would probably need to do some recording for the film and the soundtrack, right? It’s possible that she could do that at any studio, and an artist of her stature can record where she wants to record, but keeping it tight and close to production probably makes most sense, to be consistent with the other performers. 

Recording yesterday in New York then is most likely for material separate from the film, right? Is that your math too? She’s just signed a new record deal. The reputation era is now over. And we’ve always known that Taylor is always writing, that she’s been building a song archive. Sometimes those songs are banked or given to other artists. Taylor’s pattern has been to release albums in the fall, typically two years apart, although there was three years between 1989 and reputation. A new album in the fall of 2019 though, just before the release of Cats, sets up a major moment for her going into the holidays and the next award season cycle. 

Let’s start watching this process now, see how it plays out through the year, and whether or not it actually rolls out that way. 

In the meantime, about giving a song to another artist – "Better Man" is the song she gave to Little Big Town and she performed at the Bluebird Café last year during a surprise visit to the place that kicked off her career to celebrate the venue’s 35th anniversary. A documentary about the Bluebird anniversary sessions will be released this year. This performance is part of that film. Here’s a preview and or you can watch the full scene here if that link still works: