Album Review: Taylor Swift, The Life of a Showgirl

"Did you girl-boss too close to the sun?" Taylor Swift asks in 'CANCELLED!' from her already controversial new album The Life of a Showgirl'. It may seem like a strange question to ask yourself – and a far cry from lines like "While I bathe in cliffside pools / With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief" featured on one of Folklore's outstanding tracks, 'the lakes'. But it would be wrong to dismiss Taylor Swift's 12th studio album because of a few cringy lyrics.

The Life of a Showgirl involves a return to Taylor's iconic pop style. It seems to draw variously from that end of Swift's burgeoning discography, with a unique blend of Reputation, 1989 and Midnights – leavened by a sprinkle of The Tortured Poets Department. While these strands can be identified, The Life of a Showgirl' achieves a sound that's uniquely its own.

The three opening tracks 'The Fate of Ophelia', 'Elizabeth Taylor' and 'Opalite' set the scene.

With a modern, bass-filled sound, they are infused with a pop tone similar to Swift's classic hits 'Style' and 'I Can Do It With a Broken Heart', while drawing inspiration respectively from Shakespeare's Hamlet , the legendary actor Elizabeth Taylor (rather than one of Taylor's exes), and mood of the 1950s.

The album starts to take on its own identity with the jazzy 1970s-inspired 'Ruin The Friendship', detailing a high school relationship that never was, with a tragic twist.

Adding to the drama, Swift transitions into the angsty 'Actually Romantic'. The song, rumoured to be about Charli xcx, is Swift's 2010 song 'Mean' on steroids. Its cold, bitter vocals and dismissive lyrics compare her foe's criticisms to "a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse." All of this is delivered over a staccato guitar riff, while simultaneously maintaining a flirty, suggestive tone.

"You think I'm tacky, baby," she sneers, "Stop talking dirty to me."

Another standout track is the synth-pop, disco-inspired 'Wood'. A funky track, seemingly about her new fiancé, it uses an extended metaphor that is obviously sexual, while also describing how the curse of her superstition has been broken by the new man in her life.

The show comes to a close with the luminous, narrative-style title track featuring Sabrina Carpenter in a marvellous duet.

The song's soft percussion mimics a cheering audience, as the pop stars' voices melodically blend into one.

Seeming to reminisce on the Eras Tour, Swift thanks fans on the outro, "That's our show".

The Life of a Showgirl, much like the business they call show, has its ups and downs. It will probably not be seen as a Swift-ean classic – but the album's unique pop range displays Swift as an artist determined to live up to her reputation – and succeeding. It is more than worth the price of entry.

7.5/10