The Life of a Showgirl

Whatever vision Martin and Shellback set out to realize here is not really serving her strengths and, intentionally or not, appears to signal a disinterest in evolution.

With her twelfth studio album, the musician shoots into a fresh echelon of superstardom — and hits all her marks.

‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ has its moments, but lacks the consistency of Taylor’s recent work.

The Life of a Showgirl might be one of her most uneven records, but she’s as compelling as she’s ever been – the showgirl, the ringmaster and the circus all in one.

We may have seen Taylor on far better songwriting form than with ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’, but perhaps now, more than ever, she is making music for herself over anyone else.

In fairness, Wood is one clanging misstep on an album that isn’t terrible: it’s just nowhere near as good as it should be given Swift’s talents, and it leaves you wondering why.

Built around pianos and acoustic guitars, with lots of strings and harmonious backing vocals, it feels sleek but self-contained, akin to a Carole King album glossed up for modern listeners.

There’s plenty to admire of Swift – her voice, her curiosity, her ability to mine emotional nuance – but that’s been true of every Swift era. What’s missing here is the glue. Similar to Red, some tracks just don’t mesh.

Gone are the wistfulness and melancholy that permeated her last four albums, yet ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ still sounds curiously muted despite Swift reuniting with pop super-producers Max Martin and Shellback for the first time in eight years.

There’s some of that familiar production magic [of Max Martin and Shellback] 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.

While it lacks the immediacy of Swift’s other productions with Martin and Shellback, it’s inaccurate to cast The Life of a Showgirl as a total flop. There’s no such thing in the world of Taylor Swift. It’s another star in the twinkling sky dreamed up by the most popular, and increasingly prolific, artist in the world, and like every record she’s made since “Tim McGraw,” its story is more complicated than a Metacritic number or the sales of a Target-exclusive vinyl variant.

The Life of a Showgirl finds Swift making a purposeful shift in her persona. She doesn’t fully retcon the narratives of her work to date, but, perhaps for the first time, she leans fully into the idea of her persona as a work of artifice. The 12 songs here are either a peek under the mask or are another mask altogether. From a critical perspective, that pivot makes it at least a little bit interesting as an exercise, but what’s most surprising about The Life of a Showgirl is the extent to which

A catchy and substantive but unflashy album, it takes the songwriting intimacy of her “Folklore”/“Evermore” era and renders it with more clarity and oomph.

The Live of a Showgirl promises vulnerability and occasionally delivers. But Swift can’t quite commit to the bit. She’s too famous, too successful, too Taylor Swift to either disappear into the character or let us hear her own dark thoughts. Too often, it’s only skin deep.

The person Swift is competing with most now is herself, and the bulk of The Life Of A Showgirl can’t measure up to the dizzying heights of her previous triumphs. Perhaps that’s because there isn’t a clear sense of who she is or what she truly wants on The Life Of A Showgirl.

Should, in hindsight, this turn out as a selection of ‘on the road’-composed pieces, which were quickly released to make way for a more daring and bold work, I would not at all be surprised. But until then, this is an album that Swiftologists will hotly debate as to what just happened here.

"Showgirl" feels like a retreat from the vivid bloodletting of "Tortured Poets." .... Maybe those songs ["Opalite," "Ruin the Friendship," "Father Figure," & the title track] are Swift’s way of telling us that she knows "The Life of a Showgirl" isn’t as sharp as it could’ve been. We’ll see if it’s as tidy as it needed to be.

Overall, Swift’s writing holds up. The bridge of “Eldest Daughter” is a cinematic reverie of youthful indiscretions and natural imagery. .... Taylor Swift can capture the zeitgeist because she understands the concept of one: a battle between tension and freedom, and the knowledge that conflict is necessary to sustain the things we want.

Part of me wishes that Swift would do a bit more soul-searching. The Life of a Showgirl is good entertainment, but I'm still trying to figure out how any of it matters on a deeper level. If you’re not fully invested in all aspects of her life, and whatever drama stems from it, then it’s tough to get emotionally on board. That makes this a glossy, surface level pop record for the majority of listeners. It’s arguably her most infectious, energetic, and fun release in several years, which will buy