Review: On Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl,’ love and reputation are on the line

By MARIA SHERMAN Associated Press Music Writer Who is Taylor Swift s heir apparent Her th album The Life of a Showgirl offers an answer It s Taylor Swift Related Articles Review Big stars turn out to pay tribute to music icon in concert Taylor Swift eyes new London home as she tires of Trump battles overview Who s having the mid-life situation Nicole Kidman or Keith Urban Trump s granddaughter accused of stealing Travis Kelce s logo for merch Playboi Carti brings Antagonist Tour to San Francisco Sacramento Her last album The Tortured Poets Department ended with the cautionary Clara Bow an allegory that seemed to suggest her tenure atop the cultural mainstream was inherited from stars of the past like the namechecked Stevie Nicks and that a new generation of younger elastic female pop performers could soon take her place In there are several to choose from Consider Chappell Roan s full-throated theatrics Olivia Rodrigo s fiery punk-pop feminism Sabrina Carpenter s cheeky sexuality In the knotty themes of Friday s The Life of a Showgirl best illustrated in the title track Swift asserts that the baton hasn t been passed but rather shared Because she isn t going anywhere And all the headshots on the walls Of the dance halls are of the b Who wish I d hurry up and die she sings with a wink But I m immortal now baby dolls I couldn t if I tried Notably if she has a chosen successor in someone else it s the album s sole feature Carpenter who sings on the stomp-clap closer in her newly adopted twang The mournful glissando of lap steel the album s the greater part country moment arrives only with Carpenter s introduction The western genre is Swift s past and Carpenter s future Suggestive bangers and a New Heights namecheck If Swift is co-signing Carpenter she s also learning from her Carpenter has cornered the sector on tight pop songs with pert provocative messages Swift does the same with the manspreading swagger of the George Michael-interpolating Father Figure which mentions a protege and the funky Wood A precisely veiled PG- lyric His love was the key That opened my thighs she sings Girls I don t need to catch the bouquet To know a hard rock is on the way Interwoven are suggestive sensual ad-libs and a direct reference to fiance Travis Kelce s podcast Across a brisk tracks Swift s tendency toward abundance doesn t manifest itself in a double album this time around but instead in her endless vinyl variants The Life of a Showgirl mostly delivers on its promise of up-tempo pop bangers to borrow her own vernacular Fans need not wait up for the long-anticipated Reputation Taylor s Version because The Life of a Showgirl pulls from its essence But this time with a lot of affection like a truer Lover era Swift has long internalized criticisms and responded to them in her art bulk directly in s Reputation Here she is once again concerned with her perception articulated over booming lush production on CANCELLED or Elizabeth Taylor On the latter she sings Hollywood hates me You re only as hot as your last hit baby Except this time her love acts as an anchor I can t have fun if I can t have you she flirts Welcome back to Sweden For The Life of a Showgirl Swift enlisted Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback the hitmaking duo she collaborated with on s Red s and of subject Reputation Notably absent is her frequent producing partner Jack Antonoff It s a wise decision In years past Swift Shellback and Martin s pop experiments shifted not only her career trajectory but the genre itself Before We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together an EDM drop in the middle of a radio pop hit was unimaginable After the style would dominate for half the decade The Life of a Showgirl isn t as seismic but there are addictive and idiosyncratic Swiftisms here acerbic wit and thick literary references in glassy pop hooks Where a song like Opalite if attempted by another other performer would lose its weightlessness under its voluble aspirations Swift manages to swoon Stacked opalescent harmonies and a vintage swing give the song fittingly an almost iridescent quality And there are bops like the undeniable opener The Fate of Ophelia with its s-via-Robyn synth-pop and momentary Summertime Sadness vocal delivery There s a treasure trove of deliciously quotable lines too as expected Please God bring me a best friend who I think is hot she manages to make effortless in the Midnights -esque Wi h Li t a lovely song about the mundanity of romance and the suburban fantasy of a couple kids a driveway with a basketball hoop The dictionary of a showgirl Swift s dense vocabulary is on full display often full of charm But it is sometimes unwieldy a common criticism of The Tortured Poets Department like when she overstuffs Our thoughtless ambition sparked the ignition on foolish decisions which led to misguided visions into Father Figure momentarily overvaluing clever writing over clever cadence Or she is too modish The colloquial Eldest Daughter for example mentions trolling memes and comments this instant dating itself But sonically it is a thoughtful acoustic ballad with emo movement in which Swift contends with her terminal uniqueness and deep dedication to a loved one It juxtaposes nicely with something like the casually cruel pop-punk affected Authentically Romantic It s hard not to hear selected brief Hayley Williams in the distorted speakerphone vocals in the song s coda or boygenius in its harmonies another example of Swift pulling from those she s influenced and enlisted on her tours Swift has explained The Life of a Showgirl is meant to embody her Eras Tour a singular global phenomenon a canonical event in the history of pop performance that in its over three-hour runtime was a sensory explosion On these tracks she s approximating glitz and glamour with humanity and humor She spends no time waiting in the wings So let the show begin The Life of a Showgirl Taylor Swift Four out of five stars On repeat The Fate of Ophelia Opalite Skip it Honey For fans of Witty one-liners cocktails served in crystal glasses Las Vegas lechery