Taylor Swift returns blissfully in love and wary of glamour in her decadent twelfth studio album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl.’ Yet, even at her best, she falls short of delivering anything more than creative flatness.

Stream: ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ – Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift has done it all.

She charmed sold-out stadiums and watched as the Eras Tour became the highest-grossing tour in the world. She reclaimed her song masters and broke chart records she set herself. She’s sparked conversations about artist rights and has even seen crowds dressed in tasseled gold and sequins echo their voices to her singing. Her songs have become anthems, grappling with the bittersweet nature of romance and the haunting ache of love forlorn; even touching on fame, friendship, and the sharp satisfaction of revenge.

To call Swift a phenomenon is to underscore the inadequacy of language itself. She exists now as both a person and a force of nature, a singularity around which an entire ecosystem revolves. In this case, that ecosystem involves a global fandom of Swifties bound together by the friendship bracelets they exchange, the easter eggs they decode, and the eras they’ve lived through together. Taylor Swift understands music. She understands her fans, and her fans have put their trust in the pen she wields. Yet, what if that pen fails to conjure whatever superfluous literary genius Swift’s fans believe she can create?

The Life of a Showgirl - Taylor Swift — The Life of a Showgirl – Taylor Swift

Swift surprised the world when she announced her 12^th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, two months ago on brothers Jason and Travis Kelce’s podcast, New Heights. Yet, upon first listen, the album is less so an artistic statement of grandeur, and more a rehashing of sounds done before. The Life of a Showgirl, available as of October 3, is littered with odes it struggles to keep up with.

First, there’s “The Fate of Ophelia,” an electrically hypnotizing opening song referencing the age-old Shakespearean tale of Hamlet’s famed leading lady. The song bounces from echoing vocals to a deeply rich bass that entwines itself in this blissful romance that feels almost American. She sings, “Swear my loyalty to me, myself, and I” before transitioning to “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes,” an ode assumed to be about fiancé Travis Kelce.

She gets lost in a yearning trance from song start to end, swearing an undying devotion to the person that saved her from the titled damsel’s fate. While the story Swift takes listeners along is undeniably mesmerizing, it serves an injustice to the actual story of Ophelia. Her retelling turns the young noblewoman’s tale into that of a damsel in distress, infantilizing her lack of agency as something that can be saved by a man when she was a woman fighting against the patriarchal narrative she had been bestowed. Not even Swift’s prowess with a pen could have saved the song from this indubitable literary distraction.

Taylor Swift ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ © Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott

The next two songs follow that same enamored musing, hinging on the rapture of romance as she moves along from desire to melancholy and then to reflective satisfaction. “Elizabeth Taylor,” a song that weaves her love life to that of a Hollywood star adored and discarded, unfolds with vivid theatrical flair. It sounds almost reminiscent of her album Reputation, imbued with cascading beats and keys in a flow and overflow of melodrama.

Similarly, “Opalite” feels not far from a typical Swift song – upbeat, lively, and melodically layered as she reflects on her loves lost and love gained – but it fails to hit the mark. As will be all throughout the album, it takes on another sound from another artist. More specifically, the pop classic “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes.

I had a bad habit
Of missing lovers past
My brother used to call it
“Eating out of the trash”
It’s never gonna last
I thought my house was haunted
I used to live with ghosts
And all the perfect couples
Said, “When you know, you know”
And, “When you don’t, you don’t”

And all of the foes, and all of the friends
Have seen it before, they’ll see it again
Life is a song, it ends when it ends
I was wrong

But my mama told me, “It’s alright
You were dancing through the lightning strikes
Sleepless in the onyx night
But now, the sky is opalite
Oh, my Lord
Never made no one like you bеfore
You had to make your own sunshine
But now, the sky is opalite

This emulative sentiment continues for the rest of Showgirl. “Father Figure,” a rather buoyant song about dismantling a man’s leverage over her, possibly her former label head Scott Borchetta, interpolates George Michael. “Actually Romantic” bears resemblance to “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus, “Wood” pays ode to the Jackson 5, “CANCELLED!” echoes the chorus of Lorde’s “Yellow Flick Beat,” and “The Life of a Showgirl” mimics the very rhythms that comprise “Cool” by the Jonas Brothers.

While deciphering these imitated sounds felt like a game, possibly even an intentional play to pounce on the showgirl motif, what stands out more is her lack of properly crediting these samplings. Instead, Swift offers a pastiche of the world’s greatest hits, featuring recycled melodies and reheated production techniques she’s mined to exhaustion. For an artist whose genius is built on constant evolution, this dullness of sound is particularly disappointing.

**Even Swift’s lyrical aptitude, which served her well in albums Folklore and Evermore, fails her here.**

Lyrics come off as boring or uninspired, at times chasing trends and reaching for a profoundness that isn’t there. Lines in “Wood,” an energetic pop song saturated with sexual innuendos, are prosaic and obvious: “Redwood tree / It ain’t hard to see / His love was the key / That opened my thighs.”

Others like “But I’m not a bad bitch / and this isn’t savage” from “Eldest Daughter” or “Did you girl-boss too close to the sun” off of “CANCELLED!” come across outdated, tacky, and like she’s striving for some Gen Z pertinence. It patronizes her fans and is anything but pedantic.

Nonetheless, if there is one thing Swift’s done right, it’s her consistency to stay on theme. Life of a Showgirl is undoubtedly less about showmanship and more about her adversary with celebrity itself, and that sentiment follows the album’s duration. “Eldest Daughter” is a ballad on the illusion of trendiness, “Wi$h Li$t” uses glossy synth pop to manifest her desire for the ordinary, and “CANCELLED!” casts Swift in the throes of internet enemies, turning public perception into biting satire. The song’s dark, pulsing beat returns Swift to a familiar victimhood recalled in Reputation and Red.

You thought that it would be okay, at first
The situation could be saved, of course
But they’d already picked out
your grave and hearse
Beware the wrath of masked crusaders

Did you girlboss too close to the sun?
Did they catch you having far too much fun?
Come with me, when they see us, they’ll run
Something wicked this way comes

Good thing I like my friends cancelled
I like ’em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal
Like my whiskey sour, and poison thorny flowers
Welcome to my underworld
where it gets quite dark
At least you know exactly who your friends are
They’re the ones with matching scars

The album then takes its final twist, transitioning from confronting grievances through crunchy guitar lines back to that lovesick clamor present at the album’s start. “Honey” resembles much of Swift’s prior love songs, riding on spirited sounds from “Delicate” or “Daylight” to capture the dichotomy of odious pet names with loving endearments.

Even the sanguine beats of the album closer “The Life of a Showgirl” reconcile with these cruel realities. The song satirizes the illusions of glamour through a theatrical narrative that sounds as though it belongs on a Disney Channel original movie soundtrack – entirely independent from former Disney star Sabrina Carpenter’s feature on the track, of course. The song closes the album as a final afterthought, encapsulating the essence of her central motif.

I waited by the stage door,
packed in with the autograph hounds
Barking her name,
then glowing like the end of a cigarette,
wow, she came out
I said, “You’re living my drеam”
Then she said to me

“Hеy, thank you for the lovely bouquet
You’re sweeter than a peach
But you don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe
And you’re never, ever gonna
Wait, the more you play, the more that you pay
You’re softer than a kitten, so
You don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe
And you’re never gonna wanna”