On October 3, Taylor Swift finally allowed the world to hear her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, and the world had many contrasting opinions. The album overall broke numerous records, selling over 4 million equivalent album units and selling over 1.3 million vinyl albums, a new U.S. record for vinyl albums sold within a week. Many will say this proves the album is successful and historically groundbreaking; however, life-long fans disagree and believe the album lacks the classic trademark of Taylor’s previous albums.
For starters, there is a significant lack of effort in the lyrics compared to her previous albums, leading songs to be remembered as bland and uncanny. When Taylor announced the album, many held high expectations for the quality in lyricism as folklore is known for its expansive metaphors. So, on release day when the phrase, “Every eldest daughter was the first lamb to the slaughter / So we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire,” fans had something to say. There is a significant increase of popular, yet now dated, phrases such as, “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?” from her song “CANCELLED!” or “Everybody’s so punk on the internet / Everyone’s unbothered ’til they’re not / Every joke’s just trolling and memes” from the infamous song “Eldest Daughter.“
A highlight that many people agree with is that her music video for the opening track “The Fate of Ophelia” is stronger than others. The video, directed by Swift, includes a culmination of Swift’s famous Easter eggs: she references album lyrics and brings back familiar faces, such as her dancers and backing vocalists from her successful and groundbreaking Eras Tour. The video is a seamless continuous one-shot and engages viewers. Fans are hopeful for this new era and will expect more videos with this level of quality moving forward.
Overall, this album showed a deficiency in quality of lyrics, but positively keeps fans waiting to see what Swift has up her sleeve. With an upcoming documentary series on Disney Plus, Swift may potentially give viewers an insight on the journey of writing the album and simultaneously performing for 100,000s of fans every night. Although the album had mixed reviews from both fans and critics, there are still great songs like “Opalite” or “Ruin The Friendship.”