What people are saying about Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’

Taylor Swift is back with a new album and continues to wow and delight fans with her new tunes.

“The Life of a Showgirl,” which was released Friday, is already breaking records — including the most single-day streams on Spotify in 2025 so far, according to a release from Spotify.

And it had already beaten the music platform’s record for most pre-saves for an album leading up to the release, with 6 million pre-saves.

Shortly after the release of the album, Swift shared a message on her Instagram, saying, “I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right. A forever thank you goes out to my mentors and friends Max (Martin) and Shellback for helping me paint this self portrait.”

She continued, “If you thought the big show was wild, perhaps you should come and take a look behind the curtain…”

Reviews of Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’

Here is what some of the reviews are saying about Swift’s latest project.

Rolling Stone: “On her 12th studio album, Swift hits all her marks — from new, exciting sonic turns to incisive storytelling.”
Variety: “On ‘The Life of a Showgirl,’ though, love seems easy-fought. And the belief that it might actually be a breeze, instead of, like, the eye of a hurricane, makes for an album that stands as close to being an uncomplicated good time as anything she’s ever done.”
The New York Times: “‘The Life of a Showgirl’ suggests how she might be moving forward, when it’s not firmly burying old bones. A catchy and substantive but unflashy album, it takes the songwriting intimacy of her ‘Folklore’/’Evermore’ era and renders it with more clarity and oomph.”
NPR: “Always a business woman, Swift deploys the showgirl trope partly because it presents her aging audience with an adult version of the sparkles they donned for her as teens. It also depicts showbiz as a fighting arena. No longer the emerging auteur who looked to rappers to help her negotiate her reputation on the Martin-produced 2017 album of that name, Swift picks up the feather headdress to consider what defining herself in the spotlight has cost her.”
The Hollywood Reporter: “What starts off introspective and almost melancholy at times leads into a slew of giddy love, and even lust songs, fitting for a woman who was likely falling in love with her now-fiancé during the writing of this album.”
Billboard: “The result is a collection of songs that are immediately engrossing and among the most affecting of Swift’s career, while also focusing on topics like Hamlet and suburban bliss. Call it Bangers for Adults.”