Swift’s 12th studio album, “Life of a Showgirl,” was released on Oct. 3. It was a highly anticipated by fans, but it has been getting mixed reviews online.
Altogether, “The Life of the Showgirl” has similar vibes to Swift’s other album, “reputation.” To start off with, both albums contain songs that have been interpreted as diss tracks.
On “reputation,” the song “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” is speculated by many fans to be about Kanye West after the events between Swift and West following the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. On “Life of a Showgirl,” the song “Actually Romantic” is speculated by fans to be a jab at Charlie XCX because of the lyrics pointing in that direction.
Additionally, “The Life of a Showgirl” is also much more upbeat, like many “reputation” songs. However, the new album still has lyrics with deeper meanings, like those in “The Tortured Poets Department.”
For example, the first track on the album is “Fate of Ophelia,” references Ophelia from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” with upbeat music. It was the perfect introduction to the new era with the music and catchy lyrics.
“CANCELLED!” is another song off the album with similar vibes to Swift’s “reputation” album. This song has lyrics including “It’s a good thing I like my friends cancelled,” it is no wonder many Swift fans are drawing the connection between Swift’s “reputation” album and this song.
However, there were some aspects of the album that were more shocking than others. For example, in the song “Father Figure,” Swift uses a more vulgar term than most expected in her explicit version of the song. Additionally, the end of the song “Ruin the Friendship” had a plot twist that was surprising.
Swift also held a release party for the album in movie theaters. During the release party, Swift gave many insights to what inspired the album. She also provided a first look at the “Fate of Ophelia” music video before it was released on Sunday, Oct. 5, and an insider look at the production of the music video.
For the music video, Swift brought all of the performers from Swift’s Eras Tour, as well as some people who worked behind the scenes on the tour. It was fun to see so many familiar faces throughout the music video.
There is a surprising number of moving parts that went into the creation of the music video. From the sets, choreography, cues and more, it was exciting to see it all come together.
Swift’s commentary on the creation of each song was interesting to hear. For example, with the song “Opalite,” Swift talked about how she and her mom have always loved opals. Since opalite is just man-made opal, Swift took this idea and crafted a song about how love and happiness can be manmade too.
Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl” is different than what many people expected, but the album is catchy, fun and with meaningful lyrics. Swift described it best when she called it a “glitter gel pen” album. It is exactly what a “glitter gel pen” album should be.
