Country-pop starlet Taylor Swift, who sold millions of records detailing the agonies of adolescence, said on Tuesday her third album will be a "conceptual" release directed at specific people she met during her dizzying ascent to stardom in the past two years.
"In life you have a lot of situations that pop up and people come into your life and sometimes you don't get to tell them what you wish you would have told them," the 20-year-old singer/songwriter told fans during an Internet broadcast.
"This album is my opportunity to do that. Track by track, each song is a different confession to a different person."
The aptly titled "Speak Now" will come out worldwide on Oct. 25 through Nashville-based independent label Big Machine Records.
Swift said the first single -- "Mine" to be released on Aug. 16 -- was a song of hope inspired by her recent tendency to run from love.
"I'm never ever going to go past hoping that love can work out," she said.
For the first time, Swift wrote all of the songs herself and she produced the album with Nathan Chapman, who produced her previous releases. An extensive world tour will follow, she said, although dates have not yet been disclosed.
Swift is helping to keep the lights on in the ailing music business. She was the top-selling artist in the United States in 2008 and No. 2 last year behind Michael Jackson, according to tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan.
Swift also boasted the No. 4 North American tour during the first half of 2010, according to trade publication Pollstar.
Her previous album "Fearless," whose songs she either wrote or co-wrote, has sold 5.9 million copies in the United States since its release in November 2008, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
It yielded four Grammy awards in January, including album of the year, making Swift the youngest winner of the music industry's top prize.
Her self-titled 2006 debut, which has sold 4.8 million copies, and her second album are still in the U.S. charts.
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