Taylor Swift’s 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, is here—and it’s a dramatic departure in length (just 12 songs!) and production (welcome back, Max Martin!) from 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, and Midnights and Folklore and Evermore before that. Now, Swift is loudly in love, engaged to NFL star Travis Kelce, and the proud owner of her entire musical catalog. So what does an album from a satisfied megastar sound like? Our staff dives in.
What was your immediate reaction upon first listen?
Nora Princiotti: Please do not mistake this as an endorsement of either behavior, but I like the songs about hating Charli XCX and doing it with Travis Kelce!
Katie Baker: One great thing about this album is its crisp 41-minute length, which means I’ve already listened to it many times through. My original quickie half review, I guess, technically would have been when I mumbled, “… what is this …” as I drifted off to sleep last night during “Eldest Daughter.” But I’ve come around since then to more of a “… you know what, not my business!” level of interest. Sidenote: The below tweet is like the Taylor Swift version of “every fish has gills”:
Rob Harvilla: Shorter than Tortured Poets (great), sharper than Midnights (awesome), bawdier than Folklore and Evermore (yikes), lower highs but higher lows than Lover (fine). No chance this’ll crack my top 10 Taylor albums, but I’m happy she’s happy, and I don’t even mean that in an ugly way.
Helena Hunt: An overcorrection to the navel-gazing The Tortured Poets Department that delivers some shimmering, easy-listening bops (background music?) but not a lot of depth or catharsis.
Lindsay Jones: How about my sixth- or seventh-listen review? Great album to listen to on a five-mile run. Short and sweet and peppy—and none of it made me want to cry. Also, stunned that the Sabrina Carpenter feature is on the least horny track on the album.
Alexa Coubal: I don’t think any single one of the album visuals (or 20 vinyl variants) matches the vibe of the album. Waiting for the showgirl to enter the room with us.
Julianna Ress: Ever since Folklore, Taylor’s pen has gotten duller and duller. Unfortunately, The Life of a Showgirl continues that trend—these songs feel out of touch and unfinished.
Travis Kelce promised us bangers. Did Taylor deliver?
Baker: Wait, can this question please become a chyron on First Take or NFL Live? It really is only a matter of time before we get Stephen A. Smith being all, “Now. I never thought I would be here defending Charli XCX. BUT!” or Dan Orlovsky looking pained about the concept of a skip-to-bop ratio.
Princiotti: Like the Bob Mackie costumes and the overall “showgirl” theme, the promise of bangers was a bit of a red herring. I do think most of these songs are catchy, and there are moments like the descending “woah-oh-ohs” in “Opalite” or the Jackson 5 nods in “Wood” that are almost flamboyantly pop coded. They work for me. But the dominant mode of The Life of a Showgirl is ’70s-tinged soft rock. It goes down easy, but “bangers” feels misplaced.
Harvilla: No! Not at all! Zero bangers! You get airtight Max Martin–Shellback scare quotes “craftsmanship” here, but nothing half as bombastic as “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” or “Cruel Summer,” or as purely divine as “Mirrorball” or even “Antihero.” Which bothers me only when I hear the We Need Bangers strain: The Fleetwood Mac cosplay of “Opalite” gets way too sweaty for me. She’s post-banger. Leave the bangers to the plebes. It’s fine. It’s mostly fine.
Jones: After hearing the album, I’m not sure Travis knows exactly what bangers means. It’s definitely boppier than any full collection of work since 1989. But if we were hoping to get a pop song that hits harder than the true banger of 2025—“Golden,” obviously—it didn’t happen.
Ress: Despite the shift in producers (trading in Jack Antonoff for old collaborators Max Martin and Shellback), the sound of Showgirl isn’t really all that different from what we’ve heard from Swift lately. Maybe the choruses were slightly bigger? I don’t know—it’s hard to think straight after hearing the lyric “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?”
Hunt: The Life of a Showgirl has plenty of bops that’ll get your head bobbing (and distract you from some of the clunkier lyrics), but no bangers that’ll have you tearing up the dance floor at your cousin’s wedding.
Coubal: I wouldn’t call them bangers, but there are songs I’ve found myself going back to. “CANCELLED!” will definitely make the rounds on TikTok.
This question is mostly for Nora, but I’ve got to ask: How is Kelce as a muse?
Harvilla: Yeah, I defer to Nora, but remember when Jenny Slate praised her ex-boyfriend Chris Evans by saying, “He’s primary colors”? I really dig the shrewdly played-up Dumb Jock comedy of introducing Kelce to the concepts of Ophelia, Elizabeth Taylor, etc. by writing him songs about those people. It’s a love story, it’s a mismatched buddy-cop movie, it’s a far preferable dynamic to the one she had with all the sullen pseudo-intellectual indie boys she’s loved before. I’m honestly just relieved he’s not English.
Princiotti: “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle,” remains the definitive lyric of this relationship.
Baker: I was going to write a joke here about how I’m surprised that this album doesn’t have a lyric referencing Kelce’s electric eal [sic!], but then I realized that I don’t know this for sure and I’m legitly [sic!!] too afraid to look.
Jones: The line “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” from “So High School” scarred me deeply, so trust me when I say I was nervous for the Travis Kelce of it all. I generally prefer not to think about the specifics of my favorite musician having sex with a guy who’s answered my press conference questions about the evolution of the tight end position and what’s happened to the Chiefs’ explosive downfield passing game … ANYWAY, Taylor seems quite, um, fulfilled. Climb that redwood, girl.
Hunt: Um, boring? I don’t mind that for Taylor as a person (go get your basketball hoop and matching, very tall kids!), but I found myself longing for the good old days of crystal skies, stolen kisses, and pretty lies. No one really likes hearing one-note stories about happy relationships, even if they’re framed as the payoff to all her past traumas on “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Honey.” Plus, “Wood” makes it sound like the most, uh, exciting part of Travis’s personality is his redwood dick (ick!). Spare me.
Ress: I don’t know if I need to hear that much detail about his “redwood tree.”
Coubal: Hey, if you give me a rock that big, I’ll sing about your wood, too. Hard not to notice that the language on Lover (about Joe Alwyn) is veryyy different from the language used on this album. Bring back William Bowery’s pen!
What’s your favorite track?
Baker: I dig “The Fate of Ophelia”! And dammit, I get a kick out of “CANCELLED!” as long as I don’t spend too much time thinking about Brittany Mahomes basking in it. (Although I wish they’d leaned into making that song even bigger-louder-darker … it’s so close to capturing that sweet, sweet 2006 Timbaland sound.)
Coubal: It’s between “CANCELLED!” and “Actually Romantic.”
Jones: I am a Track 5 girl at heart (and also the oldest grandchild in my family, male or female), so “Eldest Daughter” is very much my shit. But at the risk of admitting I have the same taste as Travis Kelce (this is a safe space, right?), “Opalite” has wormed its way into my brain in a way that I’m not sure I’ll be able to shake. (Also, this confirms Taylor Swift as a Fourth Wing reader?)
Harvilla: “Honey,” by far, for both the casual elegance of the songwriting—“And when anyone called me lovely / They were findin' ways not to praise me”—and the genuine sweetness of Ol’ Primary Colors calling her sweetheart and actually meaning it. I love your gowns, honey. Beautiful gowns. You get a simple, clear, radiant portrait of two complicated but sneaky-compatible people in love, which is less satisfying than writing a banger but probably harder.
Hunt: As an oldest daughter with a soft spot (gaping wound) for Track 5s, I can’t deny the soul-baring delights of “Eldest Daughter.” It may have some of the cringiest lyrics (e.g., “'Cause I'm not a bad bitch / And this isn't savage”; all of Taylor’s pop culture references on this album are coming five years too late, like she last logged on during the pandemic), but they give way to frank, unadorned confessions that are, by and large, missing from The Life of a Showgirl: “Pretty soon, I learned cautious discretion / When your first crush crushes something kind / When I said I don't believe in marriage / That was a lie.” This song feels like a turning point for the album, shedding some of its bedazzled finery and references to yachts for something a little more honest.
Ress: “Honey” is cute and catchy. Now, would it be in her top 50 best songs? No—but I’m taking what I can get here.
Princiotti: And if I say that it’s “Wood,” what then?
Most quotable lyric?
Harvilla: I can’t really describe the face I made the first time I heard Taylor Swift sing the words “my dick’s bigger,” but I’m pretty sure a pop song has never gotten me to make that specific face before, so, y’know, uh, kudos.
Jones: Honestly, I haven’t found an instantly quotable lyric. A few phrases from “Eldest Daughter,” though, struck me as classic Taylor, the type that made my breath catch the first time I heard them: “I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness / I have been dying just from trying to seem cool,” “Every eldest daughter / was the first lamb to the slaughter / so we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire,” and (my favorite lyric that I believe is about Travis) “Every youngest child felt / they were raised up in the wild / but now you’re home.”
Hunt: Somehow, “Opalite” is my least favorite song but has my favorite lyrics. (Taylor gives, and she takes away.) “And all the perfect couples said, ‘When you know, you know’ / And, ‘When you don't, you don't’" is a perfect example of Taylor’s talent for turning a phrase on its ear and finding new meaning in it.
Princiotti: “I heard you call me boring Barbie when the coke’s got you brave.”
Baker: I don’t think I’ll be quoting anything from this album quite the way I still murmur, “your roommate’s cheap-ass screw-top rosé, that’s how” every time I open a bottle of cheap-ass screw-top rosé. But I did sputter laugh at “I had a bad habit of missing lovers past / My brother used to call it eating out of the trash,” so thanks for that, Tay.
Coubal: It’s between “Did you make a joke only a man could?” and “How many times has your boyfriend said, ‘Why are we always talking ’bout her?’”
Ress: “We hit the best booth at Musso & Frank’s” is a sentence I have probably said before. Taylor, it’s the corner booth in the bar area, right?
Most cringey lyric?
Baker: Other than name-dropping the New Heights podcast in the dong song? Probably “Everybody’s so punk on the internet.”
Princiotti: It’s going to take some time for me to process “pledge allegiance to your vibes.” That said, the discourse around the idea that Taylor’s lyrics have become increasingly “cringe” tends to center on a set of millennial-coded one-liners from The Tortured Poets Department, and, here, those references don’t necessarily bother me. The cheekiness of “Wood” and the random callout of Real Madrid on “Wi$h Li$t” become memorable moments and contribute to the overall lightness of the album. The lyrics on The Life of a Showgirl that trip me up are a different variety, phrases like “All that time I sat alone in my tower / You were just honing your powers / Now I can see it all,” that don’t stack up to the vividness of her best writing.
Jones: My daughter’s homework in fourth-grade language arts this week was to collect idioms she overhears in daily conversations, books, music, and videos, then pick her favorite and illustrate it. Let’s just say I’m glad she completed the assignment—she went with “Oh, you’re cooked”—before we listened to this album together late Thursday night. Turns out my dick’s bigger would have probably gotten me a call from the principal.
Hunt: I need Taylor to trust her lyrics to make their own memes instead of using memes to make her lyrics. The production mostly helps phrases like, “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?” get across the finish line, but if you stop to think about what she’s saying for a second, you’ll be begging Taylor to log off. (Also, as a copy editor, I have to give honorable mention to “legitly,” an abomination that literally makes me cringe every time I hear it.)
Ress: “Every joke’s just trolling and memes / Sad as it seems, apathy is hot.” Really the entire intro to “Eldest Daughter”—Taylor, you have more money than 90 percent of people on the internet combined. Please log off!
Coubal: “But I’m not a bad bitch and this isn’t savage,” from “Eldest Daughter.” Just felt like an excuse to say “bitch,” and “savage” didn’t rhyme enough.
Harvilla: As a wedding present to these crazy lovebirds, I have nothing to say about “Wood.”
What song do you most want to see performed live?
Harvilla: I can’t decide how I ultimately feel about “Actually Romantic”—“I heard you call me boring Barbie when the coke's got you brave” is a phenomenal opening line that will only escalate a typically asymmetrical and potentially extra-gruesome Taylor Feud™—but the choreography possibilities are intriguing. Same deal with “Father Figure,” though I’m still perversely bummed that’s not a straight George Michael cover. Naturally, I will never be able to afford to see this person in concert ever again.
Ress: I can’t decide whether the thought of 60,000 Swifties screaming, “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger” from “Father Figure” is inspiring or terrifying.
Baker: “Actually Romantic” … as covered by Olivia Rodrigo. Not to pit women against women when talking about a song pitting women against women, but man—I just keep thinking about how Rodrigo would perform those lyrics in a way that Swift, the self-proclaimed showgirl, simply does not.
Hunt: My favorite flavor of tour Taylor is spurned and vindictive (“My Tears Ricochet” and “Vigilante Shit” were two of my Eras Tour highlights). “CANCELLED!” would lend itself well to Taylor’s displays of rage and sexy soft choreo.
Princiotti: “Elizabeth Taylor.”
Coubal: “The Life of a Showgirl,” but only if Sabrina Carpenter is there.
Jones: The “oh oh oh”s of “Opalite” would be a fun sing-along with 80,000 of my sparkly friends.
Which song are you skipping?
Princiotti: “CANCELLED!”
Hunt: “Opalite” sounds like a backing track on an Old Navy commercial. The production on this album can sometimes sound chintzy instead of glamorous, and “Opalite” is, alas, the worst offender. It’s painted in the pastel shades of “ME!,” summoning up war flashbacks for every Swiftie.
Harvilla: It is rude and hyperbolic and too smug for my own-good to describe “CANCELLED!” as the Riyadh Comedy Festival theme song, but do I want to hear Taylor Swift hold forth on this particular topic at this particular moment in time? No, I do not.
Jones: I think “Wi$h Li$t” is my least favorite track so far (sounds too much like “Glitch,” which is one of my Midnights skips). But if it turns out that “CANCELLED!” is about Brittany Mahomes, I’ll be all the way out.
Ress: If you ever find yourself making a song called “CANCELLED!,” maybe just take a second to think about whether or not that’s a good idea.
Coubal: “Opalite.”
Baker: I’m skipping “Eldest Daughter” because it’s too corny, “Honey” because it’s too bland, and “Wi$h Li$t” because every time that falsetto “got me dreamin’ ’bout a driveway with a basketball … hoop!” kicks in, I am powerless against visualizing Andy Samberg singing it in a Lonely Island sketch. Speaking of skipping: Every time I’ve listened to this album so far, my Spotify has shuffled to a random older Swift song after The Life of a Showgirl concludes, and every time I’ve had a second of thinking, “Oh now this one I like!!” before realizing it’s, like, “Cardigan” or “Lover.”
What did this album tell you about who Taylor Swift is at this moment in her life?
Baker: It tells me that she’s … distracted? And, look, for good reason! (I agree with Nicki Minaj’s assessment that “Wood is exactly what falling in love with your soul mate ‘sounds like.’”) But this album mostly feels hasty and scattered, and I think what strikes me more is that Taylor sounds that way too: “Each song is like its own sort of choose-your-own-adventure,” she says on a track-by-track audio commentary released along with the album. “Each song feels like an era of its own.”
Ress: Taylor is happy, horny, and wildly successful—and still has time to wage a petty feud with Charli XCX. Some people really are just in it for the love of the game.
Jones: She’s happy and wants us all to know it. It does feel like a bit of a bookend on the Eras Tour era and an album she was compelled to make after (a) a massive change in her personal life and (b) the lukewarm (at best) critical response to Tortured Poets. TTPD was catharsis—she had to spill the contents of her diary to keep from drowning. TLOAS is sharing her joy (and horniness) in a way that makes sense from a woman who just can’t stop creating. I do wonder now what comes next—other than a big-ass wedding—and what the next musical era will look like and whether she’ll finally take a break and make us miss her.
Harvilla: I keep going back to the line “Got me drеamin’ ’bout a driveway with a basketball hoop” on “Wi$h Li$t”: There’s a fascinating dissonance here between longing for fame-defying Sweet Dumb Jock civilian domesticity and crowing about your world-historical bigger-dick score-settling blockbuster business deals. The Simple Life, for Taylor Swift, is as unattainable and science-fictional as the Superstar Life is for us simple folk, but Taylor Swift vs. the Concept of Having It All is a way more satisfying final-boss Taylor Feud™ than any actual person.
Coubal: She’s found the love she’s been writing about for the past 20 years. She can do whatever she wants, even if it means more breathy pre-choruses!
Hunt: Maybe romantic contentment lends itself to artistic stagnation? The most exciting parts of Taylor’s career have been when she remixes her sound—at least a bit—but since Midnights (which I love!), she’s been stuck in the same synthy, verbose gear. I was hoping for a more significant change in sound for The Life of a Showgirl (à la her previous reinventions on Red, 1989, and Folklore), toward something more amped up than the relatively sleepy bops of this album. But I also worry about Taylor and wish her all the rest and happiness in the world—maybe this is just what her personal well-being sounds like, and I can’t begrudge her a relatively minor effort in the midst of her (never-ending?) imperial era.
Princiotti: Congrats on the sex!
