The “showgirl” has missed her curtain call on Taylor Swift’s newest album.
On Oct. 3, Swift released The Life of a Showgirl (TLOAS), reuniting her with long-time collaborators Max Martin and Shellback, the architects behind hit albums like 1989. The album’s a commercial success: it broke U.S. records for most vinyl albums sold in a single week at 2.7 million copies. The album’s promotional film, The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, only ran in theatres from Oct. 2 to 5, but topped the global box office. Despite strong sales, the album has drawn backlash from fans and critics alike for weak lyrics and melodies—proving Swift’s brand may be losing some luster.
Swift appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Oct. 6, where she said TLOAS is “the most well-matched era in terms of where my life was when I wrote it and where I’m now.” Fans feel differently, claiming the album’s synth-pop ballads don’t match the show-stopping visuals Swift used in promotional materials. And there’ve been a lot of promotional materials: at the time of publication, Swift released 24 variant versions of the TLOAS vinyl, a move some call greedy.
Marketing aside, the album itself is a mixed bag. Sonically, it shimmers: buoyant synths, soft disco basslines, and Motown guitar riffs are closer to Swift’s Midnights and 1989 than lyrically-dense offerings like The Tortured Poet’s Department. Many of the tracks, like “Honey,” “Opalite,” and “Wi$h Li$t” seem to be about Swift’s recent engagement. Where the album works best is savouring this positivity, basking in the glow of solid, upbeat pop songs.
TLOAS isn’t disappointing for how it sounds, but what it says. Swift’s lyricism, once her sharpest weapon, feels dulled by repetition. Familiar motifs of rebirth, reputation, and romantic deliverance reappear without reinvention. The title track, featuring Sabrina Carpenter, lands like an afterthought, a neatly wrapped metaphor for celebrity that feels more obligatory than revelatory. As The Guardian wrote, “for all its polish, Showgirl offers little she hasn’t already sung and better.”
In some ways, TLOAS is outright worse than Swift’s previous works. Critics call the album’s lyrics “cringe,” particularly verses like, “We all dressed up like wolves, and we looked fire,” from “Eldest Daughter.” On one especially odious line from “CANCELLED!” asks, “Did you girl boss to close to the sun?” A strange remark from a billionaire like Swift, “cancelled” for things like her massive carbon footprint of her private jet.
By and large, the internet is bashing TLOAS for a lack of self-awareness strikingly different from Swift’s typical, meticulous approach to music. For nearly two decades, Swift has built her career around control—of narrative, of emotion, of craft. But TLOASarrives at a rare moment when that control has finally paid off. She owns her masters. She’s conquered the world’s biggest tour that is the most financially successful tour in history. Her engagement has neatly tied off years of speculation that once defined her public life. For the first time in a long time, there are no loose threads to chase, only a blank page.
If her last few albums were about rewriting history through re-releases and scathing sad-songs, Swift’s future work might be about simply living in the moment. TLOAS isn’t her best work, but it’s content and radiant in its calmer moments.
Maybe, for Swift, that’s the most radical act of all.
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Album, Album review, Music, Pop Culture, Taylor Swift, The Life of a Showgirl, vinyl records
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