Taylor Swift reflects on stardom with ‘The Life of a Showgirl’

Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated 12th studio album is here, and it is dazzling. 

The Life of A Showgirl, announced by the apex singer in late August, contains a tight twelve-song track list. Each song encapsulates the ins and outs of the singer’s life behind the scenes on the Era’s Tour, which wrapped last December. 

The album is a step beyond anything she’s done so far. It’s big and bold and glamorous. Rather than producing with long-time friend Jack Antonoff, she instead reunited with Max Martin and Shellback, industry powerhouses responsible for some of Swift’s most iconic songs, including hits from “1989,” “Reputation” and “Red.”

Showgirl’s message and themes are a drastic pivot from The Tortured Poet’s Department, which used wistfully mournful prose to deliver her raw emotions through 31 vulnerable songs spanning from the end of her relationship with Joe Alwyn, her short and final stint with 10-year situationship Matty Healy and some behind-the-scenes of a melancholy and changing time of her life. 

But now she has color back in her face. This time around, she’s lustful, she’s in love, and for one reason or another, she’s vindictive. The Life of a Showgirl is witty, catchy, and influenced by different eras of her songwriting for an ultimate album that proves even as her career continues to span two decades, Swift builds herself back up, ruling an empire and remaining immortal in show business. It’s a reigning tracklist, showcasing yet another era, showing audiences the true nature of what it means to be Taylor Swift.

However, through the glitz and glam, there are still some dull spots. Swift’s millennial, off-the-Internet mindset becomes evident through some of her writing. Calling other women “girl bossing too close to the sun” and “forever night stand” are just some of the questionable — even dated — lyric choices that interrupt otherwise near-flawless production. Her constant efforts to be cool, which she even references in “Eldest Daughter,” instead of coming off as empowering and owning, resort to sounding uncertain.

The album’s leading single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” is upbeat, fast and catchy. The track seemingly references the album’s cover, which bears striking similarities to the infamous Henry Tate Gif painting of the Shakespearean character drowning in a stream. It’s a banger start, immediately pinpointing her newfound happiness and fulfillment in this new chapter. She also foreshadows her feelings of being an “Eldest Daughter,” a later track, referencing her feelings of pressure, achievement, expectation and perfection. 

“Elizabeth Taylor” has a parallel message to Tortured Poet Department’s Clara Bow, but has the umph that it lacked, sounding almost like a secret Reputation vault track. She references the 1950s actress to frame her transforming relationship with fame and stardom, with lyrics hinting at the alienation of operating on her level, saying “You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby” and “I would trade the Cartier for someone to trust.”

There’s no shortage of Taylor expressing her love and gratitude for her football fiancé, Travis Kelce. “Opalite” is the shining diamond in the album. She opens the song, recalling feelings of being “haunted,” a self-reference to the Speak Now track, by relationships that ended poorly, and pokes fun at her tendencies to miss past boyfriends, joking that her brother used to call it “eating out of the trash.”

In Swift fashion, she once again uses colors in her writing to describe eras and feelings of her life, framing Kelce as “Opalite,” a beautiful light blue reminiscent of the sky. “Wood,” though raunchy, expresses passionate adoration for Kelce, even giving a subtle nod to an infamous Swiftie tweet, referencing a redwood tree. 

The album’s best track, sultry and dominant “Father Figure,” is sampled from George Michael’s song of the same name, and comes from the perspective of an industry executive or mentor, talking to an emerging star about entering the entertainment world as a young performer. The roles reverse by the end of the song, with Swift now a prominent figure in the industry. It’s masculine, almost vengeful, finishing what she started with Midnights’ “Vigilante Shit.”

In previous albums, Swift’s fifth track is known for its emotional depth and devastating self-truths. For Showgirl’s track five, “Eldest daughter” is one of the trip-ups of the album. The profoundness is there, but the use of questionable lyrics makes the message of expectation, pressure and perfectionism inadequate. She speaks in chronically online terms that people have called her, from “bad bitch” to “savage,” articulating that these terms thrown around online don’t encapsulate how she feels about herself sometimes. But she takes charge that she knows she is a big sister to her audience — she loudly articulates and validates women’s feelings and experiences through pop music, vowing that she won’t give up on her fans or leave them. 

Singer Charlie XCX takes a hit in the standout track “Actually Romantic,” Swift’s most sexual song, which may actually be about a woman. But being at the top of the music industry, it’s confusing for Swift to take a whole slot off the album for a catty song to someone who doesn’t pose as a threat to her, both in sales and popularity. Where the themes of Showgirl center around the pressure to perform and always outdo oneself, it’s questionable that instead of fueling other showgirls, Swift tears one down. 

The closing and title track takes a new turn, with Swift sharing the spotlight with none other than the industry’s second-favorite pop blonde, Sabrina Carpenter. Carpenter affirms and validates Swift’s life as a showgirl in the familiar, musical theatre-inspired track, closing the 12-track run by telling audiences they don’t know the life of a showgirl — and we’re never going to. 

Swift developed the confidence and self-awareness to recognize that she is now immortal in the music industry, thus she is no longer playing it safe. As said when announcing it, Showgirl is the album she’s always wanted to do — and that intention shines through. At times with lyrical choices, it feels like those in the writing room with her refused to tell her “no,” the ambitious and danceable pop album is sure to further solidify her musical reign.