The Life Of A Showgirl: Is This Show Over?
Image Credit: @taylorswift on Instagram
Taylor Swift has been at the heart of pop controversy for over a decade, yet her newest album has even turned the most die-hard ‘Swifties’ against her. The Life of a Showgirl (2025) is Swift’s most recent venture in the music world, and it has been met with harsh criticism over the last few days. Although it had hit 5 million pre-saves with no singles out, discourse online shows that people think Taylor Swift is too focused on characters like Travis Kelce, Charli XCX and has given nothing new musically or lyrically. Renowned for different genres and styles, she provides very little in terms of revolutionary writing or anything different to what we have heard in about 7 of her albums. Don’t get me wrong, I love Taylor Swift as much as the next, being a massive Folklore (2020) and Evermore (2020) fan, but have I outgrown her, or is she still stuck in 2014?
The album starts with my favourite track on the album ‘The Fate of Ophelia’. Its dancey beat kicks the album off in a sultry, exciting and pop way, creating high expectations for such an unfortunately mediocre album. As we have heard countless times in TikTok comment sections, Swift could write ‘Romeo and Juliet’, but could Shakespeare write her songs? I dread to think what Shakespeare would think if he saw Ophelia in this album.
‘Elizabeth Taylor’ was not terrible, with a catchy and exciting chorus. I guess that one could make comparisons between Elizabeth Taylor and Taylor Swift, as both were, in some ways, used for their looks.The subject of this track was a well-known philanthropist, but the same can’t be said for billionaire Taylor Swift, I fear. If she is ‘only as hot as her last hit’ then I guess this album makes her quite cold.
‘Opalite’ is where Swift’s pop luck runs out. This song is tolerable, due to its bouncy beat and its likeness to Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ mixed with her own ‘I Can See You’. However, this is also the point in the album where her songs begin to sound like Lover (2019) rejects. How can this be worse than ‘ME!’? If I were still in 2021, I would have referred to this as a ‘glitter pen song’, but does the glitter run out?
Track 4, ‘Father Figure’. If you ignored every word she said in this song and just listened to the tune, it would be good!! Comparison really is the thief of joy because how can Taylor Swift go from “Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in” to “I can make deals with the devil because my d*ck is bigger”?This is not the Taylor I know. I guess she is making a reference to the power men hold, but sometimes she is too on the nose. Taylor, during Folklore and Evermore (2020), was too poetic for this to be her legacy. My friend Lilly, as the oldest daughter, was excited for ‘Eldest Daughter’ yet, along with everyone else, has been let down again, and I would have to agree with it. This song consists of popular TikTok buzzwords and a sombre melody in an attempt to make it deep. Has Swift lost her relatability to fame?
This is where I began to struggle to listen to the album because it began to bore me and the lack of worldbuilding and storytelling in ‘Ruin The Friendship’was specifically irritating. In Folklore and Evermore (2020), Taylor was a pro at worldbuilding.Yet in this three-minute and forty-second song, we are transported back to school, listening to her regretting not kissing someone and then by the end of the song, he has died. Am I the only one confused by this? Track 7, ‘Actually Romantic’. This alleged diss track on Charli XCX is another one on this album that I could listen to, as lyrics like “No man has ever loved me like you do” make it exciting. However BRAT (2024) was a prominent album in my first year of university, so therefore is arguably more precious. The TikTok detectives, along with my friend Olly, had to explain the lore of XCX’s ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’. Cast your mind back to 2018, when Swift and XCX were both dating members of The 1975. ‘Sympathy is a Knife’ is supposed to reflect her insecurities when she was around Swift during this time. Also, the rumours are true, Taylor Swift songs are starting to sound the same; “You think I’m tacky baby” is the exact same tune as a line in ‘Maroon’ off Midnights (2022). However, the ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ guitar and vibes of the song make it a fun, jumpy tune.
‘Wi$h Li$t’, she really never lets you forget she is a millennial. I struggle with this song, not because of its lacklustre tempo or boring backing music, but because of the lyrics. I have nothing against Swift wanting to settle down and live a calmer, family life, but I struggle to understand how she can comment on people wanting more than just a family such as a Palme d’Or or an Oscar. There’s an oxymoron in Swift’s judgmental jabs at a boring life, running parallel with her dull lyricism of having a ‘whole block (of children) looking like you’. Theme of this song: Travis Kelce, no thank you!
Track 8 is more exciting than the previous one with ‘Wood’ having a groovier tempo and it sounds like a Sabrina Carpenter sultry song. This song fits with the 2025 Pop Girls, which I have never appreciated more until it saved me from the lukewarm songs on this album. This leads us to ‘CANCELLED!’, I enjoy the first few lines of each verse as it feels like something slightly new, yet once again disappoints as the pre-chorus and chorus sound like a worse version of ‘Vigilante Sh*t’. A recurring theme seems to be her redoing previous songs, but then not executing them as well. Although the music and beat are more enticing, the lyrics are so off-putting that it cannot be saved.
The penultimate song of the album ‘Honey’ feels like a massive setback in terms of Swift’s feminism. I know she has been referred to as a ‘white feminist’ in the past, but my goodness, if she says ‘b*tch’ to refer to women one more time in this album… This song is upbeat and has a summer vibe, but it’s not quite the right season to see the vision for it. Finally, the title track of the album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ (featuring Sabrina Carpenter). It started terribly for me. Please can no one ever rhyme kitty, pretty, witty, city and legitly ever again. It was painful and juvenile to listen to. However, it then began to build up to a chorus that I thought might save it, and for the final time of this album, I was disappointed. Sabrina Carpenter can’t be at fault for her involvement in such a ‘High School Musical’ sounding song (no disrespect intended to ‘High School Musical’).
I am usually not one to criticise Taylor Swift, however, this album was truly disappointing for a fan who loves her previous albums. Folklore and Evermore came out during the pandemic when I was 13, a very impressionable time and a time when I turned to music that I listened to when I was younger. The lyrics she wrote and the music were so beautiful, uplifting and inspiring that when she releases music such as The Life of a Showgirl, it feels as though her full potential isn’t being reached. The more I listen, I can find pockets of goodness, however the resounding feeling is indifference. Swift brings nothing new or exciting, and if I were to recommend a new album, it would have to be Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving (2025), which will fill you with hope and love for music. As much as I listen to Taylor Swift, she isn’t my usual genre of music, and this album will absolutely not make it into my rotation. I never thought I would say this, but bring back Jack Antonoff.
Words by Evangeline Krupa