A Look Behind The Curtain With Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl
TS12 has arrived with Taylor Swift releasing her brand new album The Life of a Showgirl. The album comes just 18 months after Taylor released her double album The Tortured Poets Department which saw features like Post Malone and Florence Welch. This is also her first album since Lover where she hasn't done a sequel, or double album release like she had done with folklore/ evermore, Midnights as well. Life of a Showgirl is a departure from working with Jack Antanoff who was the head producer of her previous 4 albums as Taylor reunites with Max Martin, and Shellback to tell you the story behind the orange door.
The album opens with 'The Fate of Ophelia', which from the moment I hit play on the album had me bobbing my head to the beat. With a jumping bass, a great drum hook with claps that make you want to join in, and lyrics that you can get lost in, 'The Fate of Ophelia' was the right choice for opening the album. 'Elizabeth Taylor' didn't seam like my kind of song until the chorus came exploding in. The first verse is very acoustic and ballad-esque, but the moment the bass and drums kick in in the chorus, the song satisfied my heavy beat craving. 'Opilate' reminds me a lot of 'Circles' by Post Malone mixed with a 90's girl group theme. The song is easy listening and hits back to the lyrical themes of 1989 & Midnights in my opinion.
I'm a Swiftie by heart, but I will have to admit that 'Father Figure', 'Eldest Daughter', and 'Ruin The Friendship' just seamed kind of okay to me. This is me basing my review off my first listen, and I'm hoping after a couple more rounds of the album that these songs will grow on me.
'Actually Romantic' seamed to have caused some controversy on X (formerly Twitter), as people describe the lyrics as being a clap towards Charli XCX. I haven't kept up, but from what I was reading, there seems to be some beef between the two artists. I'm unsure where this all started as from what I last recalled Charli and Taylor were friends as I had seen Charli open for Taylor on her Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018, and with video footage of Taylor dancing to Charli's performance at the 2025 Grammy Awards there just wasn't anything pointing to a feud.
After my first listen of the album, I needed to remind myself Taylor is a grown woman who is engaged and no longer the teenager writing heartbreak country songs on her acoustic guitar. Taylor has some songs with very suggestive lyrics on this album that left me gasping. Lyrics from her song 'Wood', "Redwood tree, it ain't hard to see, his love was the key that opened my thighs," scream explicit, but this just shows Taylor is comfortable talking about her relationship with Travis, as well Taylor is a 35 year old woman who can sing about whatever she pleases.
'CANCELLED!' is by far my favourite track on the album, it is so reputation coded, and after finding out we weren't getting the Taylor's Version of reputation, this feeds what we lost for me. My favourite lyric from the track is, "were you just too smug for your own good? Or bring a tiny violin to a knife fight?".
The album closes out with title track 'The Life of a Showgirl' featuring Sabrina Carpenter. The song is a cute track that is both artists speaking to fans describing that being in the music industry isn't as easy as it seems, and how it essentially immortalizes you, and clashes you against every other person in the industry.
I will admit that the album is good, but personally isn't my favourite from Taylor. The album has only been out for half a day at the time of writing this, but I will be sure to do a revisited article in a few weeks to see where my thoughts lay, I do feel that this album will immensely grow on me. You can stream The Life of a Showgirl on Apple Music & Spotify Below.
