<\/p>\n
Even by Taylor Swift<\/a>\u2018s standards, the numbers have been inconceivable. Billboard<\/em> reported on Saturday<\/a> that Swift\u2019s 12th album The Life of a Showgirl<\/em> had, by the end of its Friday (Oct. 3) release day, already sold 2.7 million copies \u2014\u00a0the second-biggest performance of the entire Nielsen era in just a day\u2019s time \u2014\u00a0while the set also broke streaming records left and right, particularly with lead single and opening track \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia.\u201d The album is well on its way to becoming yet another career-defining commercial triumph for Swift \u2014 though the response to it from critics<\/a> and from hardcore Swifties<\/a> has maybe been a little more mixed so far.<\/p>\n With this\u00a0Rollout Report Card<\/a>\u00a0episode, host Andrew Unterberger is joined by\u00a0Billboard<\/em>\u00a0staffers Danielle Pascual and Meghan Mahar as we look at everything surrounding\u00a0The Life of a Showgirl<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 from the New Heights podcast where the new era was officially launched, to the artwork for the album (which at least one of us may have already purchased seven alternate vinyl editions of), to the Official Release Party<\/em> film debuted last weekend in conjunction with the new set. We attempt to grade all aspects of the rollout, and whether or not the most-anticipated pop album of the year met either our own expectations, or the ones that Taylor (and now-fianc\u00e9 Travis Kelce) explicitly established for it.<\/p>\n More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n As we hand out our letter grades for all the most important factors in Swift\u2019s The Life of a Showgirl\u00a0<\/em>rollout \u2014 from the live performances and music videos to the new songs and overall \u201calbuminess\u201d \u2014 we answer all the most pressing questions: How well do we actually remember the fate of the original Ophelia? What\u2019s the best way to replicate the Official Release Party<\/em> from the privacy of your own home? Is there actually any interpolating of George Michael\u2019s \u201cFather Figure\u201d in Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cFather Figure\u201d? Do we want to see a full Taylor Swift-Charli XCX back-and-forth on record? And perhaps most importantly: How did the biggest pop star of our lifetimes possibly get way bigger yet again?<\/p>\n Check it out above \u2014 along with a YouTube playlist of some of the most important moments from this unforgettable album campaign, all of which are discussed in the podcast \u2014 and subscribe to the\u00a0Greatest Pop Stars podcast<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Apple Music<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0(or wherever you get your\u00a0podcasts<\/a>) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!<\/p>\n And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts \u2014 if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:<\/p>\n Transgender Law Center<\/a><\/p>\n Trans Lifeline<\/a><\/p>\n Destination Tomorrow<\/a><\/p>\n Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe<\/a><\/p>\n Also, please consider giving your local congresspeople a call in support of trans rights, with contact information you can find on\u00a05Calls.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/a> Billboard VIP Pass<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even by Taylor Swift\u2018s standards, the numbers have been inconceivable. Billboard reported on Saturday that Swift\u2019s 12th album The Life of a Showgirl had, by the end of its Friday (Oct. 3) release day, already sold 2.7 million copies \u2014\u00a0the second-biggest performance of the entire Nielsen era in just a day\u2019s time \u2014\u00a0while the set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[29110,343046,23084,190738],"class_list":["post-2075145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-billboard","tag-showgirl","tag-taylor-swift","tag-travis-kelce"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Charli-XCX-and-George-Daniel-marry-for-second-time-in.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2075145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2075146,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075145\/revisions\/2075146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2075145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2075145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2075145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}