By: Nicky Mondia, Reporter

The Life of a Showgirl is Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album (not counting her rerecording projects) that dropped seemingly out of nowhere. No lead single or pre-release press. Just a glitter-filled Instagram post and the imagery of Swift as a tragic Ophelia-type figure. It’s her tenth major release in five years, following a tour so massive it literally shook the earth; ‘Swift Quake’ wasn’t just a metaphor.

The rollout felt sloppy and rushed; the album was announced during the New Heights podcast with Travis and Jason Kelce. For those uninformed, Travis Kelce is Swift’s new star-studded fiancé. While I could talk about the optics of announcing an album through your fiancé’s podcast, in a relationship that is highly speculated to be fabricated for revenue, I frankly don’t care. The important thing is the album was no longer speculation; we had a name and a tracklist. Most importantly, the Max Martin producer stamp. Martin and Swift have worked together in the past to varying degrees of success. But one thing rang true: Swift was releasing a 12-track pop album. Something that fans desperately wanted after the extremely bloated and pretentious Tortured Poets Department. This would be a return to form from Swift, so the hype began. 

Striking visuals of Swift in a showgirl ensemble, clad in head-to-toe beading and jewels, accompanied the announcement. Like everything Swift produces, the hype was airtight, and on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, at midnight, the album dropped with major commercial success. Within days, Swift occupied the top 12 spots of Billboard’s Hot 100 from streams alone. The album dropped with major commercial success, ushering in both significant revenue and mixed criticism. While undeniably commercially successful, the album was quite polarizing to critics. Publications like the Guardian rated it two out of five stars in a scathing takedown of the album’s lack of originality and inability to stand out, while Rolling Stone rewarded Swift with a perfect five, reveling in Swift’s ability to stand out and self-reinvent after nearly twenty years in the business. But the public consensus was blunter: this album flopped.

Even Swift’s own reaction raised eyebrows, which is quite unheard of for her. Swift stated, “If it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.” This, of course, only added fuel to the fire. While I find the statement personally amusing, it has left a sour taste in the mouth of many. 

Of course, none of the drama matters if the music holds up, but The Life of a Showgirl forgets its own headliner.

I am someone who has defended Swift’s lyricism in the past, my favorite of her work being her 2020 album, evermore. But The Life of a Showgirl is definitely Swift’s weakest album in a multitude of ways. Swift’s intent has yet to be explicitly stated at the time of writing this review. But what we can infer is that the album is about Swift’s year traveling the world as the showgirl she has become due to her tour’s success. It explores the experience of being a performer, acknowledging both the glamour and the harsh realities of the entertainment industry. While this can be seen on a few of the tracks, specifically the title track, “The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter),” that general theming is missing from 90% of the album. The songs suffer from a lack of cohesion and purpose. 

Swift, who has proven to be a great storyteller, blunders through this album searching for a reason to even be writing it and coming up short every time, making the album feel more like a hodgepodge of disjointed, rejected songs from previous albums in general. While songs like “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Ruin the Friendship” are standouts, they aren’t enough to save the album from the fate of itself. As the tracks play, you hear a disgustingly polished song with a total lack of intention or desire. You leave the album garnering no new insight into Swift’s perspective or even a general understanding of why she felt the need to make the album in the first place. 

Lyrically, this might be her weakest showing to date. This album is so uninspired, with lyrics having you rewind to make sure you heard them right. This has some of Swift’s most egregiously painful lyricism. Swift wanted to blend older motifs and imagery with a modern interpretation, which is a fine line not many can walk, especially with minimal effort. “Eldest Daughter,” which I believe to be the worst Taylor Swift song ever made, has some of the most eye-rolling lyrics ever written by Swift. Lines like “I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness. Every eldest daughter was the first lamb to the slaughter, so we all dressed up as wolves, and we looked fire.”

It’s a rare moment where Swift’s ambition outpaces her taste, making her sound like a woeful Tumblr blogger.  This is the same woman who wrote “All Too Well.” Sadly, this album is riddled with cringy lines that make you question if Swift lost what she once had.

Production-wise, this album is squeaky clean. Swift and Martin successfully made another pop album, but it’s so polished and formulaic it feels derivative. If you have been online at all, you would know just how many samples and interpolations this record uses. Father Figure interpolates the 1987/1988 song of the same name by George Michael. Wood is claimed to echo I Want You Back by The Jackson 5. These are just a few, but the list goes on. Swift’s lack of ingenuity is prevalent and only builds the case against her that this album was rushed and uninspired.  

Much of the internet’s discourse around the record has spiraled into absurdity. My belief is this album is not Nazi propaganda or an alt-right pipeline, nor is Swift a fake fan of Shakespeare because she uses Ophelia as a metaphor. It feels like most of the discourse surrounding this album is some odd fabricated attempt at a character assassination, as if this album is even worth this much discussion. The album is low to mid-tier at best!

It’s clear as day that people feel powerless. This administration has made no secret of harming the working class, cutting benefits and funding week after week. That frustration has left many grasping for control in a country where agency feels fleeting. But viciously hating Taylor Swift is not solving anything. Why are you searching and reaching for lyrics that could resemble something problematic when the real damage is televised from the White House every night?

I clearly don’t even like this album; I would give it a 2 out of 5. But this weird obsession and desire to crucify Taylor Swift is bizarre. To think that an album so pedestrian and boring could inspire this much debate is laughable. The Life of a Showgirl is just a mediocre pop record, not the start of a regime. Taylor Swift is far from a perfect person and has many tangible things to critique. Her lack of public advocacy, white feminism politics and cruel habit of blocking artists from passing her by releasing variants. She is a greedy corporate billionaire. You don’t have to search under rocks and collect dust to figure that out, nor does something have to be morally reprehensible for you not to like it? You can just not like it. There is no morality police making you stream. 
It is clear Swift needs a break. She just went on a tour that lasted a year. Which is why this album feels more like 3 a.m. notes app confessions in between tour dates than a finished product. I understand the pressure to stay relevant in a culture that retires artists as fast as they lift them up, but she has the audience. Just take a couple of years off, stop being a greedy corporate machine and let other artists shine. Swift doesn’t need to keep sprinting toward relevancy; she’s already there. What she needs and what this album sorely lacks is rest, perspective and honesty. The Life of a Showgirl isn’t a disaster, just proof that even the most powerful pop star in the world can run out of things to say.