Review Summary: An album that has everything and nothing all at once
When I first heard Taylor Swift sing, it was at a county fair. She was not an international superstar, but merely a young woman trying to get her name out in the months leading up to what would become her self-titled debut album. I remember purchasing
Taylor Swift somewhat reluctantly, because while I wasn’t a fan of country music back at that time, there was something genuine about her that I found completely disarming. Looking back, she was definitely the spark that ignited my eventual love for country music, even if I didn’t fully embrace the genre until over a decade later. I was far from the only person who was affected this way by her music; that same endearing authenticity and lyrical acumen is what slowly built her country music empire from the lovestruck, fairytale-laden
Fearless through the dazzling thematic storytelling of
Speak Now. Her pivot to pop music saw her lose none of her charm, either –
Red boasted her most somber and contemplative song in ‘All Too Well’, while
1989 exuded her full, burgeoning confidence in a way that seemingly couldn’t be contained within the antiquated confines of country. As someone who has been following Swift’s career for nearly two decades now, all I can say is that for as skilled of a hook-crafter and global entertainer as Taylor undoubtedly is, her core appeal – the foundation of her relationship with her fans – still rests in her ability to
be one of them, and to convey the complex emotions of a shared human experience in ways that make them feel a little simpler.
In skimming the circus-like frenzy of internet reactions to 2025’s
The Life of a Showgirl, I found one particularly compelling conversation piece: has Taylor Swift become too successful to relate to her audience? After all, she’s not just famous, she’s
everywhere. Even if you actively avoid celebrity news, you probably still know all about her record-breaking
Eras tour and highly publicized relationship with Travis Kelce. Her net worth according to Forbes is 1.6B dollars (yes, that’s
billion). The shift in the actual content of her music first became obvious to me on 2017’s
Reputation, an album that I by all means still enjoy, but which saw her focusing more on topics like feuding with other celebrities and getting cancelled. That’s not to say that those issues weren’t very real and important to Swift at the time, or that the drama/isolation couldn’t have been extrapolated and applied to a more normal context, but it marked the first obvious pivot away from the kind of music that anyone from a teen girl with a crush to a middle aged father watching his daughter leave for college could turn on and instantly relate to. There’s obviously a lot more to music other than the extent to which lyrical messages feel personally relevant, but in terms of the foundation upon which Swift’s brand was built, there’s been a subtle, gradual erosion. For every time that she’s managed to tap back into the pulse of her fans (‘New Year’s Day',
folklore/evermore, ‘You’re On Your Own Kid’), there have been a plethora of alienating moments, like dreaming about multi-million dollar wills (“I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money”), lamenting that the next big artist might be nipping at her heels (“You look like Taylor Swift / You've got edge, she never did”), or just writing flat-out, uncharacteristically bad lines (“It’s like snow on the beach, weird but fucking beautiful”). Whether or not you agree with all of these various assertions, they're worth dissecting because they have a direct correlation to how so many of us consume and respond to her art.
Even though
The Life of a Showgirl is Swift’s best pure pop record since
1989 - which is saying a lot - it's hard for me to feel the same rush I did when that album dropped in 2014. I could extol the melodic virtues of ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ while discussing how it could be her best single in ages, praise how much of earworms ‘Elizabeth Taylor' and ‘Opalite’ are, or talk about how the pulsing beat/rhythm on ‘CANCELLED!’ really drives the vitriol behind each word. But more than anything, I just feel tired. For as fun as these songs are – and I'm sure I'll spin them plenty for at least a few weeks – we've mostly heard them all before, whether it's a vocal inflection borrowed from
Midnights or a production technique lifted from
Reputation. It all feels new but not
fresh, catchy but not
memorable. Like a mashup of every possible Swift musical trope tossed into a blender. As a lifelong fan, it feels like I should be engaging with the album on a deep and personal level. But as hard as I try, I can't. I can't muster enough interest in the Charli XCX diss, or how the title track is a declaration of Taylor’s love for the game (“I'm married to the hustle / I know the life of a showgirl, babe / And now I’ll never know another”). I can't bring myself to care that a thirty five year old woman has s-e-x (“his love was the key that opened my thighs"). I find most of the celebrity life concepts to be emotionally inaccessible (You're only as hot as your last hit, baby”, “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?”). She should absolutely create music that pertains to her life, but it just so happens that the gap between what affects Taylor and what affects me has only widened with each passing record. In a way, it’s surreal to witness – she’s barely recognizable as the artist who I saw happily strumming away at her guitar on a small stage in 2006.
She’s become a stranger whose songs I could recognize anywhere.
And perhaps that’s okay. Nobody ever expected her to remain in the country niche forever, and slick, streamlined, bombastic pop music is a difficult aesthetic to consistently nail
and keep fresh for – checks calendar since
Red – thirteen years. Therein lies Swift’s biggest issue moving forward, if it isn’t solely her lyrics: for the rate at which she produces music, she needs more
modes.
folklore and
evermore are classics among her fanbase because they moved in a new(ish) direction when she needed to the most (let’s be honest;
Lover was a nice album, but we all felt the diminishing returns there). I believe Taylor finds herself at a similar crossroads in 2025. She suffers from self-inflicted overexposure, and her pop formula has been pushed in just about every single direction possible to the point that anything she produces in the future will be compared to something she’s already done. That’s not a great spot to be in as an artist, and much of
The Life of a Showgirl feels like yet another victory lap as the applause of her fans begins to grow weary.
While Swift’s future directions hopefully have a little more to them, that isn’t to say that
The Life of a Showgirl is without merit. This album actually does a ton of things well, from upping the tempo in the aftermath of the often dreary
The Tortured Poets Department to finally trimming down the track number to something more manageable. Each of the album’s twelve songs easily justify their position on the list, offering up shimmering melodies with flawless production. Swift also seems happier, allowing her to exude a vibrance that was mostly absent on the moody Joe Alwyn breakup album
Midnights and especially the oft-outright depressed
TTPD. All of this is nice to hear, and makes
Showgirl an enjoyable spin even though the musical style is a tad stale and the lyrics are difficult to empathize with. None of that is enough to stop me from listening to
Showgirl and enjoying the tracks for the bangers they are.
Still, part of me wishes that Swift would do a bit more soul-searching.
The Life of a Showgirl is good entertainment, but I'm still trying to figure out how any of it matters on a deeper level. If you’re not fully invested in all aspects of her life, and whatever drama stems from it, then it’s tough to get emotionally on board. That makes this a glossy, surface level pop record for the majority of listeners. It’s arguably her most infectious, energetic, and fun release in several years, which will buy this LP some instant mileage in terms of streams, but I wonder how its replay value will hold up once the novelty wears off. There’s simply not enough substance here to uphold
Showgirl on any prolonged timeline. It’s another flash-in-the-pan, which seems to increasingly be Swift’s specialty. For listeners like me, who have been around since technically
before the start of her official career, it’s been strange to witness her transformation from purely authentic to totally jaded and plasticized. On
The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift the person seems more difficult to spot than ever, while Taylor Swift the product pervades every crack and crevice. I can no longer relate, but I’ll continue to enjoy the product.
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