Another Taylor Swift album, another discography disappointment. On Oct. 3, Swift released her 12th studio album, “The Life of A Showgirl,” as a follow-up to 2024’s “The Tortured Poets’ Department.” In the few days that I’ve had to listen to her newest endeavor, I only came out of each listen with confusion. 

Swift’s songwriting has never been more vapid. At times, it feels like she’s parodizing herself or is writing anything in the hopes that something sticks because there have to be sweet spots amidst a wasteland of ideas, right? There have to be a few cringe or sardonic quotables that will have the uninspired general music audience gasp, right?

I will admit that there are fragments of great concepts, but they are few and far between. “The Life of a Showgirl” tries to be a sparkling jack of all trades: poetic liberties, vast opulence, sharp one-liners, and shock-value brazenness. Instead, it is a master of none and ends up as an annoying miasma of tracks that miss the mark. 

And yet, as strange as it seems, it starts so solidly. Out of the gate, we get that Swiftian glory with “The Fate of Ophelia,” a stormy, melodramatic love letter to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Referencing the play’s doomed heroine, Ophelia, Swift cleverly draws on her tragic fate to mirror how she escaped such darkness because of a lover who saved her.

With its dark pop/electro essence and lyrics like, “No longer drowning and deceived all because you came for me,” this track impressed me, maybe because of the romantic English major in me or because it felt like such an authentic, earnest effort.

“Opalite” is another stunner in the tracklist, a victory lap with purely “Red” production and starry, lustrous lyrics. Swift’s vocals are perfectly dreamy and youthful when she croons about resilient love and escaping onyx nights. It just fits so well with the dance-pop/rock groove composed of breezy acoustic and bass guitars. I love that the track has this jewel-like quality because it feels just as iridescent as an opalite sky. 

Other tracks like “Father Figure” and the title track dazzled me with touches of her signature diaristic storytelling. In “Father Figure,” Swift adopts a masculine persona, conjuring imagery of an underground paternal empire of fame and close connections. When she finds a protege, she reasserts her protective nature, only to be ultimately betrayed. It plays out like a mafia-style drama, and I love it for that. Meanwhile, the title track, featuring the incomparable Sabrina Carpenter, offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of a struggling showgirl, stripped of glitz and glamour, who covers her pain with lipstick and lace.

Unfortunately, those brilliant blips in the tracklist don’t save the rest of the album from being a cacophony of musical duds and head-scratching musical ideas. “Eldest Daughter” might be my least favorite piano ballad she’s ever done; I didn’t think chord progressions could feel so soulless. She’s done vulnerable ballads well before with confessional, deep-cutting storytelling, and that’s just completely missing here. I don’t want to hear her brooding that she’s “not a bad bitch and this isn’t savage” or how everyone is punk and just trolling. As an eldest daughter myself, Swift is telling me nothing revelatory or profound about being an eldest daughter. 

Speaking of soulless lyrics and instrumentation, “CANCELLED!” is a stale “Reputation” B-side track that reeks of billionaire boo-hoo’s and gritty cliches that I could easily find in any dark romance novel. If you thought, “You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where I was raised,” was trite and out of touch, get ready for “Welcome to my underworld, where it gets quite dark.” I don’t even think she knows the implications of saying that she likes her friends canceled or learning the art of never getting caught. Are her friends saying slurs? Are they secretly deplorable people with insipid histories? 

As infuriating as these songs are, nothing is quite as infuriating as her songwriting choices. Swift will have innovative musical choices only to ruin them with vapid lyrics. Case in point: Wood. I don’t mind that her lyrics are brazenly sexual, but why are they just juvenile? “I ain’t gotta knock on wood”? “He (ah!)matized me”? The funk-pop instrumentals and vibrant guitars save the track from being worthless. If you ever see me listening to this song, know that it’s just because I’m a sucker for new wave pop. 

“Honey” suffers from the same issue where she’ll have melodic momentum on her hands before killing it with awful writing. I absolutely love how the post-chorus switches into a soft kitchy vibe when she sings “But you touched my face, redefine all of those blues” before she ruins it in the verses with “Who’s the baddest in the land?” or “Take it to the floor, give me more.” I guess some of the immature sexual lyrics on “Wood” seeped into this track. 

“Actually Romantic” had a weird pop punk quality to it, and I’d certainly like it more if she weren’t dissing someone and comparing them to a Chihuahua in a tiny purse or feeling aroused at the thought of someone hating her. This is a 35-year-old woman writing lyrics that I would have written during my lyrical-miracle emo phase in middle school.

I know I’m being harsh, but it’s because I know she can do better, and she has. She proved herself as a wordsmith and a songstress before, and both qualities are mostly absent on this album. 

I’ve seen fans defend this album with their whole chest, proclaiming, “Let her make a fun pop album! It doesn’t need to be deep!” It doesn’t need to be boring or devoid of personality, either. She’s done fun, vibrant pop albums before, like  “1989” and  “Lover,” with a great deal of success. “The Life of A Showgirl” doesn’t follow that in any innovative way. I can say with truest conviction that it is motionless and uninspired. I didn’t hear Taylor Swift, the peppy pop star, on this album; instead, I heard Taylor Swift, the overrated persona and billionaire girl boss.

Rating: 5/10

Favorite Track(s): “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Opalite,” “The Life of a Showgirl”

Least Favorite Track: “CANCELLED!”