Taylor Swift has reportedly turned down the chance to perform the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show.
The high-profile slot – which was taken in 2022 by an all-star cast of Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar – will take place in Arizona on February 12 next year, and recent reports hinted that Swift was set to perform.
However, new reports in TMZ and People suggest that the singer was asked to perform at the show, but has declined the offer in order to continue re-recording her back catalogue.
In 2019, Swift confirmed her plans to re-record songs from her first six records in a bid to take control over her music once again after music manager Scooter Braun and his media holding company, Ithaca Holdings LLC, acquired Swift’s old label, Big Machine Label Group, back in June 2019.
So far, she has released ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’ and ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ with a host of outtakes and unreleased songs, while also sharing a re-recorded version of ‘1989’ track ‘Wildest’s Dreams’ as part of a trailer for DreamWorks film Spirit Untamed.
Alongside the continuation of the re-recording project, Swift will also release 10th studio album ‘Midnights’ on October 21, which was announced during a surprise appearance from the singer at the MTV VMAs last month.
Swift detailed ‘Midnights’ in the early hours of August 29, after making a surprise announcement at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards less than an hour earlier. While accepting the second of three awards she bagged on the night – Video of the Year for ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)’ – Swift revealed: “My brand new album comes out October 21. I will tell you more at midnight.”
On what to expect from its themes, she wrote: “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves.”
Apart from its thematic concept, few other details are currently known about the singer-songwriter’s 10th album, but she recently revealed that frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff worked on the record.
In the run-up to the album’s release, she has been teasing certain details about the record, including two track titles so far – ‘Vigilante Shit’ and ‘Mastermind’.
Swift also revealed to fans that the back covers for different vinyl versions of ‘Midnights’ come together to make a clockface. Over the past month, Swift has been detailing a host of different editions of the LP version of the album. First came the ‘Jade Green’, ‘Blood Moon’ and ‘Mahogany’ editions of ‘Midnights’, all of which sport exclusive colour schemes, artwork and imagery.
She then revealed a ‘Lavender’ version of the album as part of an ongoing collaboration with Target, then taking to Instagram to reveal that all four collectible editions of the album come with specific back covers that, when placed together, make an entire clockface.
