The Life of a Showgirl: Sparkle without Substance

On October 3, Taylor Swift, arguably the most in-demand woman in music, released her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. During the two-month buildup after Swift announced the project on her fiancé Travis Kelce’s podcast, fans geared up for what she described as her next great pop era. Many anticipated a return to the glittering heights of pop dominance Swift reached with 1989 (2014), one of the most revered and critically acclaimed pop albums in her discography. Instead, The Life of a Showgirl sparked divided reactions—some

praising the production by Max Martin and its upbeat nature, others criticizing it as emotionally distant and one of her lyrically and sonically weakest albums. From casual listeners to die-hard Swifties, the album’s reception has reflected the growing tension as Taylor Swift the artist becomes subsumed by Taylor Swift the global brand.

Kelsey Perriello: Taylor Swift has always thrived on the relatable underdog narrative. From the small-town girl-next-door country singer to the all-American pop star to the innocent victim of industry power games, Swift has repeatedly overcome the odds and emerged triumphant. The Eras Tour only reaffirmed the sheer strength, loyalty, and size of her fanbase, solidifying her as one of the most powerful figures in music. Yet The Life of a Showgirl places Swift at a crossroads: she can no longer convincingly play the underdog. A billionaire, global sensation, Billboard record-breaker, and NFL fiancée can hardly be the little fish in a big pond. The

album falters in the way it lingers uncomfortably between these two identities, caught between the myth of the self-made everywoman and the reality of untouchable stardom. Tracks like the tone-deaf “CANCELLED!," where she states, “I like my friends cancelled,” and “Eldest Daughter,” where she insists she’s “not a bad bitch,” expose a disconnect between her past vulnerability and her present invincibility. In Showgirl, Swift seems unsure whether to embrace her empire and reality as a “showgirl” or to continue singing about high school and a long-gone version of herself. That’s not to say this album is all misses. The beginning of the record

starts with four solid pop tracks, like the punchy lead single “The Fate of Ophelia.” However, past that point, the album delves into a confusing world of fame, love, and betrayal that doesn’t quite seem to know what it wants to be—mirroring Swift’s situation, caught between nostalgia and the glittering cage of her own success.

Grace Copps: The lyricism on Showgirl is, to put it mildly, disappointing. The worst offender is track five, “Eldest Daughter.” Swift typically reserves the fifth track in her albums for the most vulnerable and soul-bearing offering. “Eldest Daughter” is far from vulnerable, opening with “Everyone’s unbothered ‘til they’re not / Every joke’s just trolling and memes /...Everybody’s cutthroat in the comments /Every single hot take is cold as ice” before going into a chorus of “But I’m not a bad bitch / And this isn’t savage.” Previous “Track Fives”

(as Swifties call them), like “tolerate it” on evermore (2020), included lyrics like “I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life.” We know Swift can do better, and that is what makes the lyrics on Showgirl so infuriating. Where the poetry and storytelling of folklore (2020) and evermore felt like a leap forward in the development of her artistic prefrontal cortex, Showgirl feels like a significant regression.

In the early days of her career, Swift’s appeal came from being the girl wearing sneakers in the bleachers, dreaming of the day when the football star would wake up and find that what he’d been looking for had been there the whole time. Now that she has him, she’s more of a high-heeled cheer captain, and she wants us to know it. Showgirl is peppered with references to luxury brands, much like Swift’s style since she started dating Travis Kelce. On “Elizabeth Taylor” (which is, to be fair, one of the best songs on the album), Swift croons, “Babe, I would trade the Cartier for someone to trust (just kidding).” Such references may be fit for a song invoking the glamor of Elizabeth Taylor, but this isn’t the only time they appear on the album. On “Wi$h Li$t,” Swift sings of her peers, “They want those bright lights and Balenci’ shades.” On “CANCELLED!”, she tells us she likes her friends “cloaked in Gucci and scandal.”

The strength of Swift’s art has always lain in its emotional honesty and relatability. The vast majority of her fanbase simply cannot relate to dressing in head-to-toe Gucci. What they can connect with are the themes bubbling underneath the corny lyrics: sisterhood in the face of society’s persecution of women, wanting to build a life with “The One,” and dreaming of an epic, passionate love story. Showgirl’s main issue is that the concepts are there, the Max Martin and Shellback production is there, but the lyrics kill the songs. Ultimately, people listen to Swift’s music to feel like someone took their diary and spun it into music. They want the girl on the bleachers, not the cheer captain.

Alexis Wilson: The Life of a Showgirl is not entirely horrible, but, as a lifelong Swiftie, it was easy to notice that even the best tracks off of this album feel like discarded tracks from her more popular albums. “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Opalite” are two of the highlights of this album, but feel like attempts to grasp the sound of Lover (2019). “Father Figure” could have been a vault track from Reputation (2017), and “Ruin the Friendship,” while it is a great song, sounds as though it belongs on Speak Now (2010) and is totally out of place on The Life of a Showgirl.

The main issue with this album is not the songs themselves, but the message that it sends. Swift sings frequently of her wealth and fame throughout the album, yet also still begs her listeners to pity her, claiming that “sometimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me” on “Elizabeth Taylor.” Another unsavory element of this album is how far it strays from Swift’s usual persona of being a proud feminist who supports other women. Both on “Honey” and on the album’s title track, “The Life of a Showgirl,” Swift refers to other women as bitches. While this is not something out of the ordinary in pop music, Swift herself made a notable complaint when Kanye West referred to her as a bitch on his song “Famous” back in 2016, stating in an Instagram statement, “You don't get to control someone's emotional response to being called ‘that bitch’ in front of the entire world.”

Overall, Showgirl feels like a confused scramble of themes and ideas, but it is also notably missing any sort of appreciation for her fans, which packed stadiums across the world during The Eras Tour. If this album is truly about her time on The Eras Tour, as she claims, the lack of gratitude for the people who made The Eras Tour the phenomenon that it was is upsetting. Although Swift famously declared that the “old Taylor” was dead almost a decade ago, longtime fans can easily see that her recent songwriting and music have officially declared her values dead as well.

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