Taylor Swift 'Red' to Hit Stores Oct. 22

Posted on Aug 13th 2012 8:00PM by Beville Darden

Glenn Pinkerton, AP

Taylor Swift's highly-anticipated fourth studio album will be titled Red, and will be in her adoring fans' hands Oct. 22.

"I've been working on it for two years and am so proud of it," the superstar told fans worldwide in a web-chat Monday night (Aug. 13), during which she also unveiled the album's cover art: a profile of the blond beauty, sporting her signature bright red lipstick and a hat that casts a shadow over her face. (See the Red cover below.)

"I'll buy that!" a fan in the live audience screamed upon the cover's reveal, getting a big laugh out of Taylor.

The singer-songwriter explains Red is also the title of a highly personal song on the album. It seemed like a no-brainer for her to title the album after that tune, as its lyrics encompass the entire theme of the project.

"Thinking about what that means to me and all the different emotions that are written about on this album -- they're all pretty much about the tumultuous, crazy, insane, intense, semi-toxic relationships that I've experienced in the last two years," she notes. "All those emotions -- spanning from intense love, intense frustration, jealousy, confusion -- in my mind, all those emotions are red. There's nothing in between; there is nothing beige about any of those feelings."

Big Machine Records

Red will have a whopping 16 tracks, for which Taylor jokingly thanked her record label for being "really, really nice" to let her do. She also hints there may be even more bonus tracks.

"I wrote so many songs for this album, it was really difficult to choose which ones would make it," she explains. "I ended up having to pick from between 30 to 35 songs that I had written that I really wanted to make an album."

Unlike her award-winning Speak Now album, on which she wrote every song by herself, Taylor's Red credits include a who's-who list of co-writers and co-producers -- though the only name she'll reveal for the time being is British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.

"He is so cool, such a great artist," Taylor gushes of her friend. "We wrote a song while sitting on a trampoline! We loved it so much that we recorded it as a duet."

There's no word yet on the title of their duet, but we do know the title of the album's first radio single: "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." The fun, pop-leaning song, Taylor admits, is about one of her ex-boyfriends and is what she refers to, in jest, as "a really romantic song ... touching and sensitive."

So just who is the new tune about? In true Taylor style, she's leaving that up to fans to figure out.

"I'm trying not to be too cryptic with it, but I'm trying not to give it all away," she smiles.

Watch the entire web chat with Taylor on The Boot.

Watch the Latest on Taylor's Love Life