Taylor Swift ends intrigue, announces new album in November

NEW YORK (AP) - Yes, Taylor Swift fans, Wednesday was a lucky one for you.

The pop star who whipped her army of Swifties into a frenzy with video snippets of slithery snake parts on social media posted the title of her new album, "Reputation," and announced online it will be out Nov. 10.

The first single, she said in a series of posts, will drop Thursday night. And she threw in the album's cover art for good measure: a black-and-white photo of herself - head and shoulders, in slouchy sweater, hair swept back - against a backdrop of newsprint reading, simply, "Taylor Swift" over and over again.

Swift, who is followed by millions on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, wiped her feeds clean Friday and replaced the black void Monday with the first of three reptilian videos, each offering just a tad more of a snake, from tail to squirmy middle and finally its beady red eyes and ominous fangs lunging briefly at the camera.

The teasers put fans on high alert, and the snake imagery evoked snake emojis used against her in various dis-fests last year, including one with Kim Kardashian West after West claimed Swift knew about hubby Kanye's reference to Swift in his song "Famous."

The album would be Swift's sixth studio effort and the first since the 2014 release of "1989," which is the last time she teased fans online, that round with mysterious Polaroid photographs. She scrubbed her feeds Friday of everything from profile pictures to accounts she follows. It was three years to the date from when she dropped the song "Shake It Off" and announced "1989" - and just a few days after her courtroom assault trial victory against a former radio DJ in Denver.

Word of a new album lifted Swift to a top trending topic around the world Wednesday on Twitter ahead of Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards, to be hosted by Katy Perry, a former friend.