On October 3rd, 2025, Taylor Swift released her twelfth studio album, ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ through Republic Records. This is her most recent album since the overbloated mess of an album that was ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, released on April 19th, 2024, a little over a year ago. Off the bat, though, this album looked as if it may have fixed its previous albums’ issues, having only 12 tracks on the LP, more than halving the previous ones’ number of songs, hopefully due to the reception from fans and critics.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe any of these positive signs led to much. Despite Max Martin’s affiliation and production, which typically feature huge, extravagant sounds, this one sounds extremely minimalist, especially by his standards. Many, including myself, expected a more mature songwriting style and lyrics from this album. This is far from the case, as these lyrics sound like they were written by a 16-year-old in the worst way possible, even more so than the ones she actually did write when she was a teenager, which is surprising because Swift has always been known for her extremely poetic lyrics. Unfortunately, these fall flat, especially on the tracks ‘Wood’, ‘Actually Romantic’, and ‘Canceled’, among many other instances of incredibly clunky lyrics.
The apparent theming of the album is almost completely lost, wasting the burlesque theme and giving it a directionless, non-concentrated feel. The theme is not helped by the music theory in the album in the slightest, which is so incredibly bland and simple that it could be mistaken for a baby’s first ‘song’ on a piano, plunking on the same note until a small jump at the end of the verse. It is honestly disappointing because simply playing the guitar, even on the most basic level, gives you more tools than this to write with. I believe the quote from The Alternative sums this album up extremely well, calling it ‘the year’s most disappointing blockbuster pop record’. To conclude, if you’re looking for another ‘Folklore’ or ‘Evermore’, you’ll be getting far from what you want, with this album being less ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ and more of ‘The Flop of a Washup’.
