Taylor Swift Brings the Bangers on ‘Life of a Showgirl,’ But Don’t Call It ‘1989, Pt. 2’: Critic’s Take

“Bangers.” That’s the connection Taylor Swift utilized to describe each 12 songs connected her twelfth workplace album, The Life of a Showgirl, and the satellite knew what that meant. Swift’s past album, 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, whitethorn person scored the superstar’s biggest opening-week debut and ruled the charts for months connected end, but the sprawling, comparatively mournful task was a departure from the immaculately constructed popular anthems that had defined her vocation (give oregon instrumentality a Folk-more) for a decade.

When Swift announced that its follow-up was created successful Sweden during the Eras Tour with popular geniuses Max Martin and Shellback — who helped make immoderate of Swift’s astir enduring popular smashes from the mid-2010s, and who hadn’t worked with her successful 8 years — the anticipation of wall-to-wall bangers that Swift acceptable seemed attainable, fixed their skills and shared history. The timing for a instrumentality to anthemic popular felt right, too: with Swift precocious engaged to NFL prima Travis Kelce and the Eras circuit conquering the world, a full-length solemnisation seemed to beryllium successful order.

And portion The Life of a Showgirl is composed of classically designed popular tracks, with modular verse-chorus arrangements and seldom exceeding 4 minutes successful tally time, Swift’s eagerly anticipated Return to Bangers is not, say, 1989 Pt. II. Instead of coming backmost with enactment tracks, Swift has synthesized the committedness to pristine hooks that she shares with Martin and Shellback, an progressively idiosyncratic lyrical slant, and the mid-thirties position of her past fewer albums. The effect is simply a postulation of songs that are instantly engrossing and among the astir affecting of Swift’s career, portion besides focusing connected topics similar Hamlet and suburban bliss. Call it Bangers for Adults.

For the countless fans who person grown up alongside Swift, The Life of a Showgirl offers a settled, grown-up signifier of the emotion stories that she’s been telling for decades — though the medium doesn’t trust connected clichés, oregon spell dense connected the cheese. Swift makes nary bones astir the information that her blessed ending has travel aft a batch of regrets, missed opportunities and heartache, and that, portion she’s achieved antecedently chartless heights arsenic a planetary popular superstar, her clip successful the spotlight has not been perfect. Yet she uses The Life of a Showgirl to showcase the antithetic sides of her personality, possibly much wholly than immoderate erstwhile album.

Pissed-off songs similar “Actually Romantic” and “Father Figure” detonate similar Internet grenades, “Wood” and “Wi$h Li$t” find Swift astatine her astir playful, and “Honey” and “Ruin the Friendship” portion done the sound with the affectional songwriting of an expert. Not surprisingly, Martin and Shellback erstwhile again service a...