Thursday night, October 2nd, four-time Album of the Year winner Taylor Swift released her 12th album, titled, “The Life of a Showgirl,” produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and written by Swift herself.

This album, a spiritual successor to 2014’s 1989 and 2017’s Reputation, marks the fourth collaboration between the three musicians, with this as Swift’s first album fully produced by the Swedish duo. 

As discussed on the New Heights, her fiance, Travis Kelce and his older brother Jason Kelce’s podcast, the album was written and recorded throughout the European leg of Swift’s “Eras Tour.” 

“I would be playing three shows in a row, I’d have three days off. I’d fly to Sweden, go back to the tour, and I was pretty exhausted at this point in the tour, but I was so mentally simulated and so excited to be creating,” Swift said of the recording process.

In glitzy 80’s fashion, Swift sings about fame, loyalty, and finding true love after heartbreak throughout the record.

Here is a personal ranking of each song, upon first (or second) listening:

1. Father Figure: Sampling George Michael’s 1987 hit “Father Figure,” she builds on the original themes of being a role model by fully embracing how she is seen as a guiding light within the industry. In a masterclass of writing, as the song goes on, she takes the idea of being a father by later using it to refer to herself as a Mafia Boss, essentially seeing herself as the Vito Corleone of the music industry. While having sarcastic tones, there is still an air of genuineness to these statements. After a nearly 20-year long career, she’s earned the right. Favorite lyric: “I can make deals with the devil because my check’s bigger.”
2. CANCELLED!: Following up on the themes of “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” off  Swift’s 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department, Swift grows to embrace her (and her friends) controversial natures to a darker sound than the rest of the record. Not bitter, arguably sarcastic, but still a genuine song embracing that hey, you have to be corrupt (at least, a little) to get to where she is now. Favorite lyric: “But if you can’t be good, then just be better at it/Everyone’s got bodies in the attic”
3. Actually Romantic: A direct reference to the title “Everything is Romantic” off Charli XCX’s 2024 album Brat, Actually Romantic is a tongue-and-check diss where Swift sings about how she enjoys Charli’s disdain of her. For background context, Charli opened for Swift’s 2028 Reputation tour and said it felt like “getting up on stage and waving to 5-year-olds.” The beef escalated when, following the break up of Swift and Charli’s longtime friend, The 1975 frontman Matty Healy, Charli released “Sympathy is a Knife,” also off Brat, where she sings, “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show/Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick.” This song directly addresses those comments, and how Swift finds it both amusing and romantic how much Charli seems to care. Overall, a shockingly funny, sexual, and not-at-all bitter response to a mostly one-sided, multi-year conflict. Favorite lyric: “I mind my business, God’s my witness that I don’t provoke it/It’s kind of making me wet”
4. The Fate of Ophelia: The opening track, and lead single, of the album is a groovy-70s inspired track where she sings about how her current romantic relationship, following multiple tumultuous break ups and her struggle with fame, has saved her from going mad and drowning like Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Overall, the song does a great job of setting the tone and introducing the various themes Swift sings about throughout the album. Favorite lyric: “And if you’d never come for me/I might’ve drowned in the melancholy”
5. Eldest Daughter: The only acoustic track off the album, Swift sings about how she’s kind of a loser, and a lot of people dislike her, but she’s fiercely loyal and will stick with you until the end. A nice break from all the disco pop, a good lesson about how whether people like you or not, it’s important to still be a good and dependable person, and another example of Swift’s track 5’s being the emotional core of the album. Favorite lyric: “But I’m not a bad bitch, and this isn’t savage/But I’m never gonna let you down”
6. Opalite: While the theme here is standard of Taylor’s love songs, where she sings about how after losing hope, she found love and it blows the rest out of the water, this one is just painfully infectious. The groovy 70’s ABBA-esque disco sound is strong with this one. While the lyrics aren’t reinventing the wheel, God, is it easy to bop along to in the car. Favorite lyric: “I had a bad habit of missing lovers past/My brother used to call it, “Eating out of the trash’”
7. The Life of a Showgirl (ft. Sabrina Carpenter): Closing off the album, with a nice stadium, boom-clap beat, Swift and Carpenter both sing about the people who admire showgirls…and why they shouldn’t, and how they’ll never make it if they do. Harsh. But, both play off well with one another, and while harsh, it’s a good lesson to everyone craving fame: it really does suck. And, it ends on audio of Swift and Carpenter during the acoustic set of the Eras Tour, when Swift invited Carpenter on-stage to sing Carpenter’s 2024 hit Espresso in New Orleans, which is a fun detail. Favorite lyric: “Do you wanna take a skate on the ice inside my veins?/They ripped me off like false lashes/And then threw me away”
8. Ruin the Friendship: This is a country song, lyrically, at least. Here, Swift sings about a guy she used to have a crush on in high school, but because she was too afraid of, she chose to never say anything. Pretty typical, until we get to the end where it’s revealed he died at a young age, and now she regrets her decisions. Yikes. Favorite lyric: “My advice is always ruin the friendship/Better that than regret it for all time”
9. Wood: This is a song about how Swift feels so confident in her relationship, she doesn’t need to knock on wood. And, in a double-entendre, it refers to a different kind of…wood. And, this samples “I Want You Back” by the Jackson-5. Very catchy, but not the biggest fan of the sample. Favorite lyric: “Forgive me, it sounds cocky/He (ah!)matized me”
10. Wi$h Li$t: Despite what the name might have you think, this song is actually about the nuclear family. Well, more like, here she sings that while she respects those dedicated to singledom and their careers, she wants a domestic life with a husband and kids. But, she won’t judge you if you don’t want that. However, with an overly-modern, basic pop structure, it doesn’t really stand out instrumentally. Nice message, though. Favorite lyric: “We tell the world to leave us the fuck alone, and they do”
11. Elizabeth Taylor: Here, Swift writes an open-letter to Elizabeth Taylor, asking Taylor if she is going to stick around the industry for the rest of her life, and if her relationship will inevitably suffer as a result. While it has a nice, driving beat, there are other songs with similar themes that are more sonically and lyrically interesting. However, the call back to the “Burton to my Taylor” line off Reputation’s “…Ready For It?” is fun. Favorite lyric: “Be my NY when Hollywood hates me/You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby”
12. Honey: A cute, but instrumentally bland, song about how her current relationship has recontextualized things that used to bring her pain into things that are now positive. A nice message, but really doesn’t stand out when put up against the other tracks. Favorite lyric: “They were findin’ ways not to praise me/But you say it like you’re in awe of me”