It’s beginning to look a lot like Swift-mas: Taylor Swift has a couple of major releases on the way for the holiday season — a first-time CD/vinyl edition of “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,” plus a book commemorating the Eras Tour. The products will be coming out exclusively at Target on Black Friday, the singer announced Tuesday.
The extended “Anthology” version of her latest album will finally be coming out in both physical formats, with four acoustic bonus tracks tacked onto the 31-song collection that was previously available only as a digital release, adding up to 35 tracks altogether now. The vinyl release includes four marbled, translucent LPs, accompanied by a 12-by-12 inch poster. The quadruple-LP set will retail for $59.99 and the CD edition for $17.99.
Meanwhile, “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book” is a 256-page volume that is promised to include more than 500 images, with photos of performances from every segment of the three-hour-plus show, rehearsals and behind-the-scenes images of instruments, costumes, set pieces and designer sketches, plus Swift’s personal reflections and notes. It retails for $39.99.
“The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” had previously come out as a digital download and stream just two hours after the standard edition in April, but LPs and CDs were only available for the standard 16-track version up to this point.
Swift said in a social media message that information on an international release for the products would be coming soon.
The Nov. 29 release of the book, CD and vinyl in Target’s North American stores will precede by one day the products becoming available for online sale in the retailer’s webstore and app.
The four acoustic tracks being added to the “Anthology” releases were not included in the announcement. Swift has already released a number of acoustic takes on limited-edition, digital-only versions of the standard “Tortured Poets” album.
The release of the “Anthology” version of “Tortured Poets” in physical formats is sure to have a big impact chart-wise. So far, the release (with standard and deluxe editions all counting together) has topped the Billboard 200 album chart for 15 non-consecutive weeks, a personal best for Swift and something accomplished by only a handful of artists in Billboard history. It will almost certainly reclaim the top spot for at least one week after the CD and vinyl “Anthology” release, and maybe more, barring any unexpectedly strong competition getting a surprise release in the same time frame.
Swift is returning to North America stages shortly for the last leg of her nearly two-year Eras Tour, the most commercially successful in history. She plays again in the U.S. for nine dates, starting with a three-night stand in Miami this weekend, and then does nine shows in Canada, wrapping everything up in Vancouver Dec. 6-8.
