As well as bagging a clutch of awards at a star-studded music ceremony in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday night, Taylor Swift also dropped an item of information which had the Swifties in the room screaming – the name of her new album and the date of its release.

What was the occasion?

No less an event than the 66th Grammy Awards, held annually to offer a hearty back slap to the musicians whose songs and albums have proved the most popular or most critically regarded over the previous 12 months. Swift, now 34, is no stranger to the annual beano having nabbed her first Grammy nomination in 2008, the year after the iPhone launched. That was for Best New Artist, which seems laughable now she rules Planet Pop from north to south, east to west. Her first wins came in 2010, when she took home four Grammys. Since then she hasn’t stopped.

And did she win again on Sunday?

Oh yes. Two more Grammys came her way when she picked up Best Pop Vocal Album as well as the coveted Album Of The Year award for a record-breaking fourth time, edging her ahead of Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra. The album in question is Midnights, Swift’s every-record-in-the-book smashing 2022 release. And it was while accepting the applause on the winner’s podium that she announced the new album, adding that she was then going to go backstage and post a picture of the cover on social media. Cue internet mayhem as her 270 million Instagram followers reached for their phones.

So what’s it called?

The title she revealed – and she enunciated it very clearly, because it’s long and slightly tongue-twisty and she may have had one or two glasses of celebratory champagne by this point – is The Tortured Poets Department.

When is it out?

It will be released on April 19 through Republic Records, and its 16 tracks feature collaborations with rapper Post Malone and British indie darlings Florence And The Machine. The black and white cover image Swift posted when she finally made it backstage at the Grammys shows her lying on a bed of white pillows in black high-waisted shorts and a sheer top. The cover was shot by American photographer Beth Garrabrant, who also created the images used on Swift’s Folklore, Evermore and Midnights albums. The clothes were from Yves Saint Laurent and The Row, the luxury fashion label founded by Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen.

Anything else?

Her Instagram post also included a snap of a page of her hand-written lyrics. It reads: “And so I enter into evidence/My tarnished coat of arms/My muses, acquired like bruises/My talismans and charms/The tick, tick, tick of love bombs/My veins of pitch black ink/All’s fair in love and poetry … Sincerely, The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department.”

Did the internet break?

Yes, though it was already creaking. Earlier in the day Swift’s website appeared to crash when it started showing the HTTP status code “Error 321 Backend fetch failed” and below that the error code “hneriergrd” in bold. Anagram-savvy fans soon untangled that second clue – it’s “red herring” scrambled – and further online sleuthing revealed a 321 error to be something to do with fax machines. For Swift’s young fanbase, these are deliciously retro contraptions. Others right clicked and took a deep dive into the website’s coding where they found random words in foreign languages which translated into English as: chairman, bruises, veins, cadence, apple cake, talisman, love bombs, muse, ink, evidence and fake. See what she did there? Taylor does love her Easter eggs, as these sorts of online clues are known.

So what is next?

Superbowl LVIII, on February 11. Conspiracy theorists have it that the Kansas City Chiefs were somehow helped into Sunday’s NFL final against the San Francisco 49ers because Swift is dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and her turning up to the game could add tens of millions to the viewing figures. It’s good news for R&B star Usher, mind. He has been given the honour of providing the traditional half-time entertainment – though doing it with the undisputed Queen of Pop looking on (and probably singing along) may be a little daunting.