By Anna Rushton
On October 3rd, 2025, world-famous singer-songwriter Taylor Swift released a new album named “The Life of a Showgirl”. The album features 12 songs, with a feature from Sabrina Carpenter on the title track.
This album was inspired by Swift’s relationship with American Football player Travis Kelce and also reflects her victorious and confident state of mind coming off of a career high. The entire album is very upbeat and consists of soft rock all while exploring what it’s like to be a celebrity, contrasting the glittering public persona with the personal life that exists behind the scene.
The 12 songs on the album are as follows: “The Fate of Ophelia”, “Elizabeth Taylor”, “Opalite”, “Father Figure”, “Eldest Daughter”, “Ruined The Friendship”, “Actually Romantic”, “Wi$h Li$t”, “Wood”, “CANCELLED!”, “Honey”, and “The Life of a Showgirl”. The songs range from mellow beginnings to upbeat tracks.
Despite the album’s undeniable popularity (it has remained steadily on top of the charts for the few weeks it has been released), there has been mixed reception. Some fans were upset at Swift’s seemingly lack luster lyrisism, which included many references to modern slang, such as “girlbossed to close to the sun”, “we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire” and “I’m not a bad bitch and this isn’t savage”.
Additionally, I along with other fans were skeptical about some of the inappropriate lyric choices and out of character sexual innuendoes in a few of her songs.
IHS sophomore Emilia Doncov explained that “I find this album’s vibes and lyrics to not be my favorite. I enjoy Taylor Swift’s passionate and lyrically dense songs, and most of the songs on this album don’t have much soul behind it.”
What I think numerous fans are trying to say is that the lyrics of most of the songs on the album didn’t have the “spark” that songs from other albums had. There were high expectations set by her previous albums, which led to disappointment from some fans who felt the lyrics lacked the depth expected from her.
Personally, my expectations weren’t very high. I will say a majority of the songs in the album were not my style, and I struggled to finish listening to the album. However, there were some tracks which I enjoyed. My favorite song in the album is “The Fate Of Ophelia” because I liked the background music.
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