Courtesy of Mert Atlas & Marcus Piggot

Taylor Swift released her 12th studio album “The Life of a Showgirl” on Oct. 3 and made it clear that her artistry is no longer a top priority. 

Following the end of her two-year run of the Eras Tour — which grossed about $2 billion — Swift announced the new album on an episode of her fiancé and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s podcast, “New Heights.” This was the first step in a new direction that Swift decided to take with the album, and it was not a good precursor to its release. 

In the announcement, Swift said the album would still have the incredible story telling aspect of “folklore,” but the lyrics would be put to fun beats, turning the songs into “infectious anthems.” Ultimately, this set her up for failure and led her fans to be severely disappointed when the album finally dropped. 

The first half of “The Life of a Showgirl” is the strongest part of the album, albeit it’s not all that great. “The Fate of Ophelia” has one redeeming quality, and it is that the chorus and beat are catchy enough to warrant multiple listens. However, the song only became likable after a few listens of ignoring the lyrics.

Arguably, the most fun track on the album by far is track three, “Opalite.” The song is dance-worthy and fun, and is one of the only songs that feels like what Swift was promoting the entire album to be — it’s glittery and theatrical.

“Father Figure,” “Eldest Daughter” and “Ruin the Friendship” all share the catchy melodies that Swift talked about in her announcement, yet they all have lyrics that fall flat. Although Swift said the goal of this album was not to showcase the lyrical genius apparent in her past albums, she claimed the songs would naturally contain great lyrics since it’s her talent. However, the story-telling and lyrics of most of the tracks on the album are just plain and unimaginative — a major disappointment considering Swift has proven to have the capability to write fun, catchy pop songs with amazing lyrics (i.e., “1989”). 

Courtesy of Mert Atlas & Marcus Piggot

The seventh track, “Actually Romantic” has been the center of discourse around the album for being a potential diss track directed at pop star Charli XCX. While some might consider it mean, it actually feels like a breath of fresh air on an album that is drowning in boredom. If anything, it makes for a fun drama between two mega-successful artists. 

A severely tone-deaf and strangely worded song is track eight, “Wi$h Li$t.” Swift rambles for three minutes about wanting to live in suburbia with people who look just like her. While she may be singing about finally getting the life and family she has always dreamed about, it comes at a time when too many anti-diversity and traditional agendas are being pushed by the current administration for her to even put out a song whose message could be misconstrued.

Tracks nine through 11 highlight the terrible songwriting on this album and are ridden with too many strange buzz words for any listener to enjoy the song without being taken aback. For instance, “Wood” is a 2:30-minute ode to Kelce and quite frankly lacks any creative innovation. 

“CANCELLED!” specifically leaves a bad taste in the mouth when you consider the current political climate of the country and who Swift has been seen hanging out with the past couple of months, including but not limited to known Trump supporter Brittany Mahomes. It is another song that is completely tone-deaf and comes off as a MAGA-sympathetic track, which has not gone unnoticed by Swift’s fans.

Finally, the closing and title track, “The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter)” should not have been a duet, but redeemed the album ever so slightly. It’s the song that aligns the closest with the marketing of the album — it has jazzy and theatrical themes that the rest of the record lacks. The only issue with it is that Carpenter is a much better singer than Swift and that is far too apparent on this song. Carpenter simply has more emotion and range, and her verse is a stark difference from the rest of the track. 

After my initial listen to “The Life of a Showgirl,” I had decided that it was my least favorite album Swift has put out. Now that a week has passed, nothing has changed. The record is missing the most important aspect of any Swift album: Swift’s lyricism. 

Many fans have taken to online platforms to defend Swift’s corny writing on this record with excuses that she has always had a few cringey songs make it onto her albums. Examples of this would be “ME!” from “Lover” or “Look What You Made Me Do” from “Reputation.” Arguably, while those songs are cringe worthy, they are redeemed by the production and cohesiveness of the rest of their respective albums. “The Life of a Showgirl” is made up of multiple tracks that are corny, out of touch and flat out weird — the bad writing isn’t an anomaly, it’s a consistent theme throughout the album. 

For someone who prides herself with being a great lyricist and “English teacher” to her fans, Swift made no genuine effort to highlight those skills on this album, despite claiming to do so. 

Even the work of award-winning producers Max Martin and Shellback was not enough to make this album a hit. Both Martin and Shellback have worked with Swift on successful albums before: “Red,” “1989” and “Reputation.” They are no strangers to making absolute bangers and award-winning tracks. While their influence is definitely present in the upbeat and pop nature of the album, it falls flat when combined with Swift’s lack of voice and emotion throughout the record. 

Many people were already skeptical about Swift’s career taking a turn after the release of “The Tortured Poets Department” in 2024 — an album that despite all the backlash still won multiple awards and had five Grammy nominations — but this album really begs the question on whether or not Swift should have given herself more time after wrapping up the Eras Tour before releasing any new music. 

Swift has said that the album was written while she was still touring, and that is far too apparent. Rehearsing and performing a three hour show, three nights every week for two years does not leave a lot of room nor bandwidth for a person to write a solid, good album. “The Life of a Showgirl” proves that. With more than half of the album sounding like first drafts, the album feels like a mediocre attempt to try to ride the coattail success of the Eras Tour — a few more months in the studio would have been beneficial. 

During its debut week, “The Life of a Showgirl” has charted fairly well, but with a good amount of those numbers stemming from pre-sale purchases, it will be interesting to see what the future trajectory of the album will be. So far, the album has fallen nothing short of mediocre for longtime Swift fans and only time will tell if that holds true.

A version of this article appeared on p. 15 of the Oct. 9, 2025 print edition of the Daily Nexus.