The fourteen-time Grammy Award-winning singer Taylor Swift released her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, on October 4. The new album guides fans through her love life, specifically with her fiancé, Travis Kelce, and it consists of 12 songs, one of them featuring Sabrina Carpenter. While none of the songs are bad or feel out of place, there also isn’t anything that stands out as a great addition to Swift’s huge catalog of hits.
The album also goes through her experience of fame, how it seems glamorous to others, but in reality it can come with exhaustion and loss of privacy. Swift adds in some encounters with dangerous fans, performing while being sick, and her other struggles as an artist.
While she adds in some of the more negative aspects to fame, she also brings a positive vibe to the lyrics, by adding in her amazing experiences as a singer. She said in an interview with Elle; “I would say it’s everything that was going on behind the curtain”
The vibe of The Life of a Showgirl is much different than the rest of her albums. With this being her twelfth album, she has really tried everything with music, from country to pop. While Swift’s albums always bring something different than the last, and this album sees Swift as the cynical star rebelling against the industry while increasing the sex appeal to her audience. This mix of Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter doesn’t really suit Swift, and this leads to muddled and strange tones throughout her tracks.
Take “The Fate of Ophelia,” which is one of the best songs on the album. While it has a catchy Swiftian beat, it drags with its slow pace. Swift’s typically tight lyricism is also missing—despite being the best song on the album, it definitely could have been written to be more universal and less dated. For example, the chorus says to “Keep it one hundred,” a sentiment that reeks of the much-maligned “Hey kids! Spelling is fun!” in her 2019 song “Me!”
The other songs on the album could have been better as well. Some of the songs felt rushed, as though she was trying to meet a deadline. While the lyrics were very romantic and metaphorical, none of the metaphors she sings about feel complete or even needed in some cases. In a word, these songs are slow—slow beats, long-held notes, and hitting the same topics so often that it’s hard to differentiate some songs.
This drop in quality hasn’t affected her album sales. Life of a Showgirl has broken the record for the most-streamed album in one day on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. This also surpassed her former albums by setting the record for the most-streamed album in two days.
Of course, swifties ( the fandom name for people who support her music) like the album and think most of it was written about her relationship with Travis Kelce. Based off of how most of the songs on the album are about Taylor and Travis’s relationship, fans can tell that they are the real deal. Typically, Swift just has one or two songs about her relationships on her albums, but this album is all about their relationship.
Overall, the album is pretty rushed. The songs are okay, but nothing special. Aden Montez spoke about her opinion on the album as well; “She was trying to make an album just for the sake of making an album, not that she actually wanted to. Like she didn’t get the magical urge to make an album, she made it just so she could be on people’s minds again. Clout, if you would.”
