One of the biggest pop stars in the world should know a thing or two about the travails of show biz. That's the loose concept behind
The Life of a Showgirl
, the 12th album from record-breaking, zeitgeist-defining entertainer and global success story
Taylor Swift
, comprising songs that touch on what life is like at that level of fame, but that ultimately come across as reflections on maturation delivered from the perspective of someone who's grown up in the public eye. There's a glamorous tension to opener ¿The Fate of Ophelia,¿ a dynamic and slow-burning dance-pop track, and the enormous choruses and cinematic melodrama of ¿Elizabeth Taylor¿ serve the album's theme of exploring fame in all its glory and darkness. Compared to 2024's voluminous
The Tortured Poets Department
, these 12 songs feel sharp and concise. Instead of working with producers
Jack Antonoff
and
Aaron Dessner
as she had for many of her prior albums,
Swift
reunited with
Max Martin
Shellback
for
TLoaS
, the Swedish producers who helped craft some of her most successful songs. There's some of that familiar production magic in the instantaneous disco-pop hooks of ¿Wood¿ or the classic Swiftie melodic sensibilities and sonic detailing of ¿Opalite,¿ but nothing comes close to the poreless candyshell immediacy of ¿Bad Blood¿ or the undeniable catchiness of ¿We Are Never Getting Back Together.¿ Instead, these songs choose a more refined approach that's slower to take hold but makes an impact nonetheless. The tempos are relaxed and the energy is restrained, even on the starry-eyed title track, in which
enlists
Sabrina Carpenter
to sing along on a soundtrack-ready narrative about the price of success. ¿Actually Romantic¿ is an indirect but thinly veiled retort to
Charli xcx
's
Brat
track ¿Sympathy Is a Knife,¿ which many deduced had some lines about
. While "Actually Romantic" gets in some smirking jabs over a guitar-led chord progression borrowed from a
Pixies
song, it lacks the vulnerability that made ¿Sympathy Is a Knife¿ such a stunning and honest exploration of insecurity. It's also one of several instances on
where
's lyrics aim for more adult themes but come off a little bizarre. There are sexual innuendos throughout the album that feel awkward and confused, especially for a star with so many preteens and children in her fan base.
reaches for a more grown-up reading of her identity here, with themes of commitment, devotion, and a greater embrace of explicitly sexual references than we've seen from her before on songs about her upcoming marriage, while the emotionally unshielded ¿Ruin the Friendship¿ explores the grief and regret connected to the death of a high school friend. In the end, however,
isn't quite an exposé on the perils of the music industry, nor
's emergence into maturity, but some slightly weird and scattered attempt at both, all from the perspective of someone who's spent her formative years on a stage and feels these life changes in ways not many of her fans will be able to relate to. ~ Fred Thomas