The Life of a Showgirl
What’s a girl gonna do after the record-smashing Eras Tour? Well, its success sparked the flame inside Taylor Swift that led to a reunion with former collaborators Max Martin and Shellback for her 12th full-length *The Life of a Showgirl*. Indeed, in a very showgirl manner, Swift flew back and forth to Sweden between stops on her European leg—remember, the singer-songwriter believes “jet lag is a choice”—to join Martin and Shellback, Swift’s co-writers and producers on some of the most memorable and popular hits of her career (“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “22,” “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” “Don’t Blame Me,” and “Delicate,” to name a few). The result? A confident, dazzling, at times elegant, at times cheeky, at times sensual pop explosion that examines Swift’s relationships and her fame, which is both deeply personal yet extremely relatable...mostly. (The struggles of “Elizabeth Taylor”—with its thumping rock vibes—can understandably be reserved for the uber-famous showgirls in the room.) “This album, by personality, was a funnier album,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “It was coming off of *TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT*—the character attributes I was highlighting in that writing process were much more serious and sensitive and introspective, and oftentimes more earnest and stoic, and the characteristics of a poet. This one was like, showgirls are mischievous, fun, scandalous, sexy, fun, flirty, hilarious.” On the album’s first single “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift tests that theory by dipping back into the Shakespearean well that earned her crossover success and adoring fans, and once again, she turns the Bard’s tale into a romance rather than a tragedy. But this time, it’s more mature and fierce—as the acceptant heroine resigns herself to solitude before the hero ever comes around: “I swore my loyalty to me, myself, and I/Right before you lit my sky up.” Her muses, of course, will be well-dissected. The aforementioned savior in “Ophelia” is most likely Swift’s husband-to-be, the three-time Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce. (She did, after all, announce the album on his podcast.) And he *probably* has a few more cuts dedicated to him—the most direct being the saucy, ’70s-funk-infused “Wood” and its “new heights of manhood” revelation. “When I met Travis, I started to feel a little bit like I could be like a person who could have romantic whims and have these dreams,” she says. “Actually Romantic,” with its semi-stripped-down production, deals not with a lover but with a certain hater. “You think I’m tacky, baby/Stop talking dirty to me/It sounded nasty but it feels like you’re flirting with me/I mind my business, God’s my witness that I don’t provoke it/It’s kind of making me wet,” Swift teases. And “Father Figure” pays homage to George Michael with Swift’s breathy vocals, ending with a menacing act of betrayal by a protégé: “You made a deal with this devil/Turns out my dick’s bigger/You want a fight, you found it/I got the place surrounded.” Importantly, though, remove Swift’s own personal inspirations and score-settling and you get what she does best: vibrant songs that speak to universal emotions through her storytelling. The buoyant “Opalite” shows two people finding each other at the right time; baroque-pop “Wi$h Li$t” portrays someone who knows what her heart desires. And “Eldest Daughter,” the famous track 5—generally one of Swift’s most vulnerable on each of her albums—reveals a promise of devotion. Swift ends the record on its title track, an epic duet with Sabrina Carpenter where the women volley back and forth about a girl named Kitty, perhaps alluding to their own places in the world. “And all the headshots on the walls of the dance hall are of the bitches who wish I’d hurry up and die/But I’m immortal now, baby dolls, I couldn’t if I tried,” Swift sings proudly. In other words, as she’s proven time and time again, she’ll never go out of style. “Making this was really something I’ve been wanting to do for my entire career, because I have always wanted to have fun in this type of way,” she says. “To have fun, to exhibit mischief and be flirty and fun and make jokes—that’s a huge part of my personality. Oftentimes, I get so serious, or I’m really known for a lot of my sad songs, my cathartic songs or breakup songs or whatever, because I love to write those things—but that’s not the place I’m in my life. So what I have left behind is something that really exhibits who I am in this moment.”
A dozen albums in, Taylor Swift’s never been bigger—and her music’s never been less compelling.
Taylor Swift has an identity crisis on her 12th album The Life Of A Showgirl, never quite reaching the dizzying heights of her previous work.
On Taylor Swift's 12th album she's less interested in making grand statements and more concerned with capturing fleeting feelings - to radically diminishing returns.
Some of Taylor Swift's classic sweetness can still be found on 'The Life Of A Showgirl', when it’s not dissing Charli XCX or lauding Travis Kelce’s manhood.
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Taylor Swift's 'The Life of a Showgirl' combines new, exciting sonic turns with incisive storytelling.
There’s a leaner version of this album hiding in plain sight: an EP-length run that offers more than chatter on a feed.
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Taylor Swift – consummate showgirl that she is - is fresh off the press from the most immense tour in musical history, yet is still capable of heading
Taylor Swift and Max Martin reunite for The Life of a Showgirl, a scattershot collection of pop bangers and meditations on fame that captures the zeitgeist.
The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift album review by Sam Franzini for Northern Transmissions. The LP is out today via Republic and DSPs
Far from the Max Martin-assisted pop juggernaut fans expected, this soft-rock paean to domestic bliss is slight on tunes and still seethes with grievance. And the less said about her fiance’s ‘magic wand’, the better
Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl review: An album that has everything and nothing all at once
The Life of a Showgirl gives us romance and wit, but it lacks the drama of her earlier music
The Life of a Showgirl: Actually Romantic lyrics take aim unnamed pop star who called Swift a ‘Boring Barbie’
A record this weird should be more interesting, surely. Album New Music review by Joe Muggs