Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl is fizzy, earwormy and, well, not great

Open this photo in gallery:

Taylor Swift is in love. She’s also baking sourdough bread, and settling scores against her most venomous adversaries, and, as ever, looking to the past through sparkly tears – perhaps life was easier when she was eight or nine. Perhaps it was even better before she was born, she muses, in the sugary sonic worlds of vintage pop.

The Life of a Showgirl, Swift’s infectious, irreverent 12th studio album, doesn’t hide that it has something to prove – “You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby,” Swift croons on Elizabeth Taylor, a schmaltzy ode to the iconic actress that sideswipes her own relationship with fame.

In Swift’s case, economists are still working out the total impact of her “last hit” – her career-defining Eras Tour, which in just under two years vaulted her to an unprecedented level of celebrity, scrutiny and wealth. Over the course of 21 months, Swift toured her 3½-hour set to 51 cities; at every stop, her mere presence boosted the local economy by millions.

Enter The Life of a Showgirl. If you were to believe the album’s marketing materials, you’d think the project is a sort of B-side to the Eras Tour – to quote Swift, “a peek behind the curtain” at the fleshy, tender person at the centre of the most profitable concert tour in history.

An intriguing enough premise, and one that drips with cover art potential – plumage, pearls, pizzazz.

But for a songwriter long praised for her confessional lyrics – for storytelling straight from a childhood bedroom, or the bottom of the ocean, or the edge of a crumbling cliff – The Life of a Showgirl feels like something of a false start. Hollow double entendres about hardwood trees and honey ring inauthentic and coarse. Where’s the introspection of Folklore and Evermore, the tongue-in-cheek camp of Reputation and The Tortured Poets Department? What happened?

Open this photo in gallery:

Open this photo in gallery:

Producers Max Martin and Shellback, early members of the Swift Cinematic Universe on monster records such as Red and 1989, skilfully reinforce Swift’s best ideas: a sultry interpolation of George Michael’s Father Figure, a killer earworm on the chorus of Opalite, a theatrical title track that capitalizes on Swift’s easy rapport with Sabrina Carpenter.

A few gems aside, however, The Life of a Showgirl deals in something Swift has largely avoided for the bulk of her discography: cliché. “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?” she taunts on Cancelled!, a chalky echo of Vigilante Shit from 2022’s Midnights. “It’s a good thing I like my friends cancelled.”

Swift anticipates the criticisms before they have time to land: “It’s easy to love you when you’re popular,” she purrs. “But one single drop, you’re off the roster; tone-deaf and hot, let’s all just off her.”

There’s not much to be gained from guessing which controversial celeb pal inspired the track, a low point on an album of lows. And indeed, Swift’s extraordinary, suffocating fame has throttled her ability to move, speak and, I’m sure, even think clearly without a cloud of unasked-for feedback from fans and foes alike.

But those lines feel petulant and insincere for an artist with a platform (and creative output) as large as Swift’s. At best, they’re a half-hearted critique of so-called cancel culture set to pulsing rhythmic guitar. At worst, they’re a demonstration of Swift’s regression as a lyricist, an alternate-universe hellscape where lines end in easy, obvious, and, yes, tone-deaf rhymes.

Open this photo in gallery:

Actually Romantic is a more complicated affair. It’s one of the better songs on the album, a carefree diss track speculated to be about electro-pop superstar Charli XCX. The production and lyrics are cohesive and playful, à la 2019’s I Forgot That You Existed, while Swift’s vocal affectations mimic the pop-rock snarls of the early 2000s, the casual acoustics of Weezer and even early Fall Out Boy.

Did Charli XCX deserve to have her addictions and insecurities lambasted on as big a stage as this one? I’ll leave that to the TikTok stans to decide. Questionable lyrics notwithstanding, the song’s a banger.

Opinion: Why Taylor Swift’s engagement is a huge moment for millennials (and it’s not because they’re vapid)

Opinion: Swift-Kelce engagement shows whichever way America’s cultural mores swing, the NFL will be there

Wood is another kaleidoscope of mixed impact, a cheeky, candid bop about superstitions and, yes, sex. The “knock on wood” of it all is breezy and light, but the song quickly takes a turn toward corny: “His love was the key that opened my thighs” is a fine sentiment for a pop record, but here, it’s clunky, spat instead of sung, even against the get-up-and-dance twang of the track’s Jackson 5-esque pouty guitar.

All in, The Life of a Showgirl is at its most persuasive when it drops its ambition and glitz – when the Swift who climbed to stardom on a ladder of piano keys and poetry gets the chance to come up for air. Eldest Daughter is classic Swift, a blend of previous all-timers White Horse, All Too Well and The Black Dog aimed not at a former lover, but at a self incapable of living up to the impossible, poisonous pressures of a supersized persona.

“I’ve been dying just from trying to seem cool,” sings Swift, breathy and brave as she confesses. In those four minutes, the Swift in our ears and the Swift we grew up with meet for coffee, exchange war stories, braid each other’s hair.

Yes, for an exquisite, too-short moment, The Life of a Showgirl isn’t about headpieces or rhinestones or money – it’s about the ultimate showgirl’s inner life.