{"id":63988,"date":"2025-10-07T20:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T20:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/63988\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T20:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T20:13:07","slug":"taylor-swifts-the-life-of-a-showgirl-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/63988\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cBangers.\u201d That\u2019s the word Taylor Swift<\/a> used to describe all 12 songs<\/a> on her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, and the world knew what that meant. Swift\u2019s last album, 2024\u2019s The Tortured Poets Department<\/a>, may have scored the superstar\u2019s biggest opening-week debut and ruled the charts for months on end, but the sprawling, relatively mournful project was a departure from the immaculately constructed pop anthems that had defined her career (give or take a Folk-more) for a decade.<\/p>\n

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\n\tWhen Swift announced that its follow-up was created in Sweden during the Eras Tour with pop geniuses Max Martin and Shellback \u2014 who helped create some of Swift\u2019s most enduring pop smashes from the mid-2010s, and who hadn\u2019t worked with her in eight years \u2014 the expectation of wall-to-wall bangers that Swift set seemed attainable, given their skills and shared history. The timing for a return to anthemic pop felt right, too: with Swift recently engaged to NFL star Travis Kelce and the Eras tour conquering the world, a full-length celebration seemed to be in order.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd while The Life of a Showgirl is composed of classically designed pop tracks, with standard verse-chorus arrangements and rarely exceeding four minutes in run time, Swift\u2019s eagerly anticipated Return to Bangers is not, say, 1989 Pt. II. Instead of coming back with party tracks, Swift has synthesized the commitment to pristine hooks that she shares with Martin and Shellback, an increasingly idiosyncratic lyrical slant, and the mid-thirties perspective of her past few albums. The result is a collection of songs that are immediately engrossing and among the most affecting of Swift\u2019s career, while also focusing on topics like Hamlet and suburban bliss. Call it Bangers for Adults.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the countless fans who have grown up alongside Swift, The Life of a Showgirl offers a settled, grown-up phase of the love stories that she\u2019s been telling for decades \u2014 although the album doesn\u2019t rely on clich\u00e9s, or go heavy on the cheese. Swift makes no bones about the fact that her happy ending has come after a lot of regrets, missed opportunities and heartache, and that, while she\u2019s achieved previously unknown heights as a global pop superstar, her time in the spotlight has not been perfect. Yet she uses The Life of a Showgirl to showcase the different sides of her personality, perhaps more wholly than any previous album.<\/p>\n

\n\tPissed-off songs like \u201cActually Romantic\u201d and \u201cFather Figure\u201d detonate like Internet grenades, \u201cWood\u201d and \u201cWi$h Li$t\u201d find Swift at her most playful, and \u201cHoney\u201d and \u201cRuin the Friendship\u201d slice through the noise with the emotional songwriting of an expert. Not surprisingly, Martin and Shellback once again serve as welcome foils, packing a ton of instrumentation into each production and streamlining the final product into a finely crafted mix. And she does indeed have a proper top 40 banger at the top: \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia\u201d is a stick of dynamite opening the album, and sounds like it will join her collection of smashes in no time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe limit does not exist to how high Swift can keep soaring \u2014 anytime her downfall (or even a notable downturn) has been predicted, she climbs higher and winks at her naysayers. By pivoting back to pop anthems with humor, empathy, a little fury and a lot of wisdom, Swift ensures that ascent will continue. The Life of a Showgirl is one of the most grounded, well-rounded projects of Swift\u2019s career \u2014 a surprise, in the context of the hype preceding it. That doesn\u2019t make it any less successful.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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