Music Review: On Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl,’ love and reputation are on the line

Who is Taylor Swift’s heir apparent? Her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” offers an answer. It’s Taylor Swift.

Her last album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” ended with the cautionary “Clara Bow,” an allegory that seemed to suggest her tenure atop the cultural mainstream was inherited from stars of the past, like the namechecked Stevie Nicks – and that a new generation of younger, elastic female pop performers could soon take her place. In 2025, there are many to choose from: Consider Chappell Roan’s full-throated theatrics, Olivia Rodrigo’s fiery punk-pop feminism, Sabrina Carpenter’s cheeky sexuality. In the knotty themes of Friday’s “The Life of a Showgirl,” best illustrated in the title track, Swift asserts that the baton hasn’t been passed, but rather shared. Because she isn’t going anywhere.

“And all the headshots on the walls / Of the dance halls are of the b—— / Who wish I’d hurry up and die,” she sings with a wink, “But I’m immortal now, baby dolls / I couldn’t if I tried.” Notably, if she has a chosen successor in someone else, it’s the album’s sole feature: Carpenter, who sings on the stomp-clap closer in her newly adopted twang. The mournful glissando of lap steel – the album’s most country moment – arrives only with Carpenter’s introduction. The western genre is Swift’s past and Carpenter’s future.

If Swift is co-signing Carpenter, she’s also learning from her. Carpenter has cornered the market on tight pop songs with pert, provocative messages; Swift does the same with the manspreading swagger of the George Michael-interpolating “Father Figure,” which mentions a protege, and the funky “Wood.” (A carefully veiled PG-13 lyric: “His love was the key / That opened my thighs,” she sings. “Girls, I don’t need to catch the bouquet / To know a hard rock is on the way.”) Interwoven are suggestive, sensual ad-libs … and a direct reference to fiance Travis Kelce’s podcast.

Across a brisk 12 tracks – Swift’s tendency toward abundance doesn’t manifest itself in a double album this time around, but instead in her endless vinyl variants – “The Life of a Showgirl” mostly delivers on its promise of up-tempo pop “bangers,” to borrow her own vernacular. Fans need not wait up for the long-anticipated “Reputation (Taylor’s Version),” because “The Life of a Showgirl” pulls from its essence. But this time, with a lot of affection, like a truer “Lover” era.

Swift has long internalized criticisms and responded to them in her art, most directly in 2017’s “Reputation.” Here, she is once again concerned with her perception, articulated over booming, lush production on “CANCELLED!” or “Elizabeth Taylor.” On the latter, she sings, “Hollywood hates me / You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby.” Except this time, her love acts as an anchor. “I can’t have fun if I can’t have you,” she flirts.

For “The Life of a Showgirl,” Swift enlisted Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback, the hitmaking duo she collaborated with on 2012’s “Red,” 2014’s “1989” and, of course, “Reputation.” Notably absent is her frequent producing partner Jack Antonoff. It’s a wise decision: In years past, Swift, Shellback and Martin’s pop experiments shifted not only her career trajectory but the genre itself. Before “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” an EDM drop in the middle of a radio pop hit was unimaginable. After, the style would dominate for half the decade.

“The Life of a Showgirl” isn’t as seismic, but there are addictive and idiosyncratic Swiftisms here: acerbic wit and thick literary references in glassy pop hooks. Where a song like “Opalite,” if attempted by another other performer, would lose its weightlessness under its voluble aspirations, Swift manages to swoon. Stacked, opalescent harmonies and a vintage swing give the song, fittingly, an almost iridescent quality.

And there are bops, like the undeniable opener “The Fate of Ophelia” with its 1980s-via-Robyn synth-pop and momentary “Summertime Sadness” vocal delivery.

There’s a treasure trove of deliciously quotable lines, too, as expected. “Please God bring me a best friend who I think is hot,” she manages to make effortless in the “Midnights”-esque “Wi$h Li$t,” a lovely song about the mundanity of romance and the suburban fantasy of “a couple kids … a driveway with a basketball hoop.”

Swift’s dense vocabulary is on full display, often full of charm. But it is sometimes unwieldy, a common criticism of “The Tortured Poets Department,” like when she overstuffs “Our thoughtless ambition sparked the ignition on foolish decisions which led to misguided visions” into “Father Figure,” momentarily overvaluing clever writing over clever cadence.

Or she is too modish. The colloquial “Eldest Daughter,” for example, mentions “trolling,” “memes” and “comments,” immediately dating itself. But sonically, it is a thoughtful acoustic ballad with emo movement, in which Swift contends with her “terminal uniqueness” and deep dedication to a loved one. It juxtaposes nicely with something like the casually cruel, pop-punk affected “Actually Romantic.” It’s hard not to hear some brief Hayley Williams in the distorted speakerphone vocals in the song’s coda or boygenius in its harmonies: another example of Swift pulling from those she’s influenced – and enlisted on her tours.

Swift has said “The Life of a Showgirl” is meant to embody her “Eras Tour” – a singular global phenomenon, a canonical event in the history of pop performance that, in its over three-hour runtime, was a sensory explosion. On these 12 tracks, she’s approximating glitz and glamour with humanity and humor. She spends no time waiting in the wings. So let the show begin.

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“The Life of a Showgirl,” Taylor Swift

Four out of five stars.

On repeat: “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Opalite”

Skip it: “Honey”

For fans of: Witty one-liners, cocktails served in crystal glasses, Las Vegas, lechery