Taylor Swift has set two Spotify records for 2026, including the record for the most-streamed female artist in a single day.
Swift achieved the milestones after the midnight release of “The Life of a Showgirl: Encore,” which contains four new songs, including the lead single “Patient Zero.” The track established a new 2026 record for the most-streamed song by a female artist in one day, while Swift also recorded more streams than any other female artist in a single day this year.
Swift released “The Life of a Showgirl: Encore” after slowly building anticipation for new music, beginning with Easter eggs featured in a “Law & Order: SVU” skit during the Emmys telecast. Playing a detective, she said, “I think what we’re going to be looking for is hiding in plain sight.” She subsequently broke the fourth wall, stared into the camera and added, “Saccharide. Aries. From the vineyard. North or south.” Swifties quickly deciphered the clue, realizing that the third letter of each word spelled out “encore.”
Then, on Tuesday, she revealed that her new single “Patient Zero” would arrive this week and made three limited edition CDs of the song available through her website. The following day, she announced that she would instead release “The Life of a Showgirl: Encore” on Friday, giving fans four new tracks: “Patient Zero,” “Cleveland!,” “Pink Clouding” and “Babylon.”
Swift later explained on social media why she decided to add new material to her 2025 album. “About a year ago, you guys did a truly unfathomable thing. Something that completely blew my mind… You gave ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ the biggest first week for an album in history,” she wrote. “I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album. Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs. I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made. ‘The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore’ including four new songs is out on Friday and available to pre-order and save now.”
Swift’s next major appearance will come at this Sunday’s MTV VMAs, where she is scheduled to premiere the video for “Patient Zero” and receive the inaugural Artist-Director Award. She offered a preview of the video on “CBS Mornings” on Thursday before posting it across her social media accounts. The video was shot by Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki and will feature Swift alongside Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell.