Taylor Swift The Life Of A Showgirl Reviews: Critics Have Mixed Feelings About The New Album

While critics are so far pretty split on Taylor Swift’s new album, one thing they can agree on is that it’s not what they were expecting.

Taylor revealed earlier this year that she was reuniting with Max Martin and Shellback on her next release, having previously worked with the Swedish hit-makers on her albums Red, 1989 and Reputation.

But if Taylor’s reunion with super-pop producers, and the accompanying imagery for The Life Of A Showgirl, had you thinking she was returning to the pure pop sound of Shake It Off or I Knew You Were Trouble, it might surprise you to hear that her new music has a more mellow feel to it, with comparisons having been made to everyone from Fleetwood Mac to Lana Del Rey.

Some critics have been heaping praise on the new release, while others are skeptical about Taylor’s new direction.

Here’s a selection of what’s been said so far about The Life Of A Showgirl…

Rolling Stone (5/5) 

“Just when the world thought Swift couldn’t climb any further, she did [...] So there’s no imaginable way she could possibly get any bigger, right? Well, that’s where The Life Of A Showgirl comes in. Only a sucker would think the curtain close of the Eras Tour marked the end of Swift’s almighty reign in the pop sphere. With her twelfth studio album, the musician shoots into a fresh echelon of superstardom.”

The Guardian (2/5)

“Dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled [...] it’s just nowhere near as good as it should be given Swift’s talents, and it leaves you wondering why. Perhaps romantic contentment simply writes whiter than vengeful post-breakup bitterness, or perhaps it wobbles your judgment. Perhaps it was rushed. Or perhaps its author was just exhausted, which would be entirely understandable.”

The Times (4/5) 

“These are solid, hook-filled tunes [...] which head toward a classic style that recalls the soft rock ease of Fleetwood Mac, the country rock zest of Sheryl Crow, the doomed romanticism of Lana Del Rey. Most of all it sounds like Taylor Swift, expressing both the desires of everyday people and the realities of global fame in a way that is both approachable and impossibly out of reach.”

The Telegraph (3/5) 

“Showgirl represents 35-year-old Swift’s happy ending. It is a long way from her persona as a modern everywoman, forensically dissecting the affairs of her battered heart. No one could begrudge her happiness, but Swift’s new album has all the bite, realism and piercing psychological acuity of a Barbara Cartland fever dream.”

The Independent (4/5) 

“The Life Of A Showgirl might be one of her most uneven records, but she’s as compelling as she’s ever been – the showgirl, the ringmaster and the circus all in one.”

BBC News

“The Life Of A Showgirl is a triumphant pop victory lap [...] it is a combination of compelling songwriting and whip-smart production that easily clears the high bar Swift has set for herself.

“Fans expecting a return to the maximalist pop of Red and 1989 might be surprised. Swift’s new music is more cool and collected than her previous collaborations with Martin; tapping into the atmospheric textures of his recent hits for The Weeknd and Ariana Grande.”

NPR

“There’s a ‘no new friends’ feeling emanating from this album’s meaner moments that gestures toward the divisiveness that generally afflicts our culture in 2025. It’s very possible that Swift is leaning into pettiness and even bad taste as a way of further fleshing out the spotlight-hardened character she’s exploring. But to send such messages now is a choice [...] Despite these Darth Vader moments, Showgirl is generally a sunny album, its pleasure rooted in its basic motivations: Swift’s happiness with Kelce and her joy in flexing in the studio with Martin and Shellback.”

Billboard

“The Life Of A Showgirl is one of the most grounded, well-rounded projects of Swift’s career – a surprise, in the context of the hype preceding it. That doesn’t make it any less successful.”

Variety

“It’s too late for Swift to have a ‘song of the summer’, but this feels like the Album of the Summer – the calendar be damned. It’s giddy, funny, touching, silly, haughty and moving in about equal measure, but most of all, it’s got a sunstruck kind of love that besottedly seeps through the orange LP grooves and might even make you believe in romance again, too.”

Los Angeles Times

“In contrast with the bleary Tortured Poets, which yielded only one pop-radio monster in the Hot 100-topping Fortnight, Showgirl is likely to spin off several [...] As a piece of psychological portraiture, though – the framework, for better or for worse, by which Swift has trained us to interpret her music – this collection of expertly tailored bops falls well short of its predecessor.”

The Mirror

“Every moment of heartache, disaster and battle has brought her to this point. It’s nothing like what’s come before it – but then isn’t that the point? If you were [hoping for] the pop bangers of 1989 or the devastation of The Tortured Poets Department then you’ll definitely hate this. But if I can say one thing – being in love suits you, Taylor.”

The New York Times

“[The album is] something of an Eras Tour in miniature – Cancelled! sounds like a Reputation outtake; Ruin The Friendship, about a missed teen connection, recalls the wide-eyed Fearless. In that way, Showgirl is a more cogent form of chaos than Swift’s prior two albums, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department, which were unwieldy and centreless.”

The Hollywood Reporter

“A delicious, and at times scandalous, collection of mellow-pop hits.”