Goodbye, tortured poet; Welcome, show girl. Taylor Swift begins a new era, as she calls each of the stages of her career, which inaugurates every time she gets disc. And here is the 12th: The Life of a Showgirl. After the most intimate The Tortured Poets Departmentwhich launched with 31 songs in April 2024 and whose flag colors were black and white, it is time to shine in oranges and turquoise, with feathers and glitters. And to do it with honest and direct letters.
That is what Swift, 35 years old, with this Girl’s Life of the show which he has published between enormous expectation – more than six million people had him wondered in his Spotify accounts – at twelve o’clock at night, east time of the United States (even Thursday night in much of the country and Latin America; six in the morning in peninsular Spain): a more danceable, agile and even fun album, produced by the bright Swedish Max Martin and Shellback. It is not that it is intended to be the sensation of the dance tracks, but it leaves the most contemplative tones of the previous one to focus on issues where its classic great depth of letters is present, but more agile. The fans were waiting for him and knew it, first because she had already dropped that it was going to be a more danceable set; But also, because the previous day part of the album had leaked the day before.
The networks are treacherous sometimes, but also home orders: millions of fans had bought their albums both through the swift store (which depends on Universal) and from the Target supermarkets, which have an exclusive edition of it. And the latter have been too fast and have delivered the album on Thursday. That is why there are those who have received it in advance, and a few have leaked it, and they have also uploaded photographs of some of the letters. But most of the fans, as always, tremendously faithful to the artist, have decided to shield the music so that it did not go out until marked time. In addition, many of these songs have disappeared as the day was spending, denounced for breaking the copyright.
But at twelve o’clock, as a good Cinderella, the true content of the 12 songs of the album has finally uncovered. In addition, he has accompanied him from a publication on his social networks, as he usually does. In it he affirms: “Tonight all these lives converge here. The mosaic of laughs and the cocktail of tears. Where fraternal souls sing identical things. And it is beautiful. It is exultant. It is scary.” And he continues: “I cannot express how proud that I am to share this with you, an album that I feel so well. My eternal gratitude to my mentors and friends Max and Shellback for helping me paint this self -portrait. If you thought that the great show was crazy, you might come to take a look between racks …”. Together with the words, nine images of the singer as the purest of the Cabareteras, taken by the famous duo of photographers Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott.
Swift had left clues, phrases, through its networks, other songs and an ephemeral installation placed in New York. And indeed those little phrases have been fitting in the 12 themes, but also many more, where he talks about money, materialism (he comes to talk about those who dream of Oscars or “a contract with Real Madrid”), of solitude, internet trolls, of canceled friendships, of ancient lovers and relationships that he never thought to be able to achieve, of accomplished dreams and other broken.
The first theme on the list is also the first single, The Fate of Opheliain reference to the destination of the figure of Ofelia, the failed heroine of Hamlet who, after he murders his father, dies drowned after falling from the branch of a willow while picking up flowers. The theme also seems to guide the aesthetics of the album cover. Although it has drawn other more spectacular versions, loaded with feathers, glitters and pearls, the one chosen as the main one is more intimate, with the water covering a dwelling swift, half disheveled and with the blurred makeup, a kind of scene after the curtain where you want to show before its fans, authentic, once the foci have been turned off. AND The Fate of Opheliawhere he tells how he escaped from that destiny (“no more drowned or deceived”) It was, indeed, the song that first leaked.
Among the list of songs, the second also stands out, Elizabeth Taylorwhere is one of the first letters that met from the album, because it was painted with lip bar in a mirror in New York (similar to a scene of the actress in the film A marked womanfrom 1960): “Oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me“,” Often, being me is not so glamorous. “Swift has made more references to the late actress in some other songs, as in …Ready For It?from his sixth album, Reputationbut never so explicit. As she herself explained during the recording of the Graham Norton program, in London (which will be broadcast on Friday night, but from which the fans present have already uncovered some conversations), it is a romantic issue written from the point of view of the actress, because, as she explained, she feels that they have parallel lives. In fact, he speaks of a trip to Portofino, and one of the first destinations in which he was with his now promised, Travis Kelce, was northern Italy.
The fourth theme is Father Figurewhich takes the name of the 1987 of the late George Michael; In fact, he appears as a cocompositor. The managers of their legacy have written a text on social networks (with the colors and aesthetics of this album) in which they wish Swift, the theme and the album and in which they claim: “We were delighted when Taylor Swift and his team approached us at the beginning of the year to talk to us to incorporate a fragment of George Michael’s classic Father Figure In a new song of the same title that would appear on his next album. When we listened to the theme we had no doubts to accept this association between two great artists, and we know that George would have felt the same. ”
In addition, the song has – like almost all Swift lyrics – much more background: as explained in the show Norton, deals with Scooter Braun (in fact, makes a word game with his last name, and says “I drink that brown liquor“,” I will drink that brown liquor “, which sounds like Braun). The one who was almighty manager and discoverer of artists such as Justin Bieber or Arian Reword those first six albums and take them on tour, next to the new ones, giving rise to their millionaire The Eras Tour. Finally, in May, Swift managed to repurchase the rights of all those songs.
Among the most anticipated is also the last, the 12th, the one that gives name to the 12th album (for something Swift is very specific to the numbers, and their fans know it), The Life of a Showgirl. It is a pop collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter, who has first been her fan and, for a few years, her telonera and friend.
There is also a song, the seventh, Actually Romanticthat actually is much more than a romantic relationship. To show, the start: “I heard you call me Barbie boring when cocaine gave you courage (…) You wrote me a song saying that it makes you sick to see my face. Some would be offended. But it is sweet, the truth. All the time you have spent on me, is wild, all the effort you have put, the truth is that it is romantic.” The recipient or recipient is not entirely clear, although fans, as always, have their theories, and both they and some media suggest that the dart is going to singer Charli XCX.
There are many more messages between the lines to decipher the new Swift album. She hides them as shells, intermingled, covering each other, sometimes clearly linear, others intricate. Some will have their explanation in hours, especially when from Friday night she tells them in a documentary that will arrive during the weekend to the cinemas; Others, on the other hand, perhaps take years to unwind at all. The artist of Pennsylvania loves to play, hide metahistories, place clues that may not reveal up to many songs, many eras, later. That already remains as a task for swifties of the world.