Precious few music critics would’ve said that Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” needed more songs.
When it was unveiled last October, Swift’s 12th studio album — inspired by the joy, drama, and “effervescence” of the Eras Tour, Swift said at the time — received some of the most disenchanted reviews of her career.
Although “Showgirl” became a titanic commercial success, and some reviewers praised the album as glitzy and triumphant, many said it fell short of her best work as a songwriter. Even among Swifties, the pop star’s ever-devoted fan base, “Showgirl” is commonly considered a bottom-tier album in her two-decade oeuvre.
And yet, Swift has rarely been one to back down from a challenge.
Faced with both thoughtful critiques and bad-faith smear campaigns, she refused to disavow “Showgirl.” Instead, Swift thanked haters for giving her free promo: “I welcome the chaos,” she told Zane Lowe. “The rule of show business is, if it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.”
Nearly one year later, Swift has doubled down on her sequins-are-forever era with the release of a deluxe edition, “The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore,” which features four brand-new songs.
Although Swift previously said the “Showgirl” tracklist would not be extended, she was evidently struck with creative inspiration amid the album’s chaotic (and record-breaking) arrival. So, she wrote more songs.
Indeed, the surprise deluxe release aligns nicely with the album’s relentless, theatrical ethos. As Swift sings in “Elizabeth Taylor,” half-sarcastically, half-sincerely, “You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby.”
Business Insider’s senior pop culture writer and resident Swift expert, Callie Ahlgrim, reviewed each of the album’s new songs upon first listen. The track-by-track breakdown is below.
‘Patient Zero’
“Patient Zero” is a kind of Swiftian twist on the famous “cool girl” monologue.
In Gillian Flynn’s seminal mystery novel, “Gone Girl,” the pathological anti-hero Amy Elliott Dunne outlines the humiliation ritual for women seeking male validation. To earn the crown of “cool girl,” she observes, a woman can’t speak her mind or get angry or complain. She must shape herself to fit a man’s specifications, lest he get bored and discard her.
Like Amy, Swift is over trying to be the cool girl. “Patient Zero” is written with the benefit of hindsight, addressed to the new partner of her narcissistic ex — a man who lovebombs, lies, and schmoozes to maintain his perfect haloed facade. All the while, there’s a devil on his shoulder, whispering sweet nothings into his ear.
Swift subverts the classic “scorned woman” trope by recounting these wrongs, not with vengeful rage, but with calm, chilling clarity. “When the fever turns a dreamer into a pathetic ghost / If he’s killing you, I see you, I was patient zero,” she sings in the song’s final lines.
She’s like Bertha Mason in the attic, warning Jane Eyre of Mr. Rochester’s evil, or Rebecca, hovering like a wraith over her murderous husband’s estate; she’s the woman who haunts the narrative long after she’s gone.
There are delicious metalayers at work here; Swift sang about her immortality in the “Showgirl” title track, taunting those who wish she’d “hurry up and die.” But she can’t, even if she wanted to. Her art, her musical legacy, will keep her voice alive for generations to come — especially for the muses whose misdeeds helped inspire it.
‘Cleveland!’
Historically, Swift’s songs are made better by their specificity.
The clock that reads 1:58 a.m. in “Last Kiss.” The fabled scarf in “All Too Well.” The grocery store receipts in “Marjorie.” These details are presumably personal to Swift, but she has a knack for transforming knickknacks and scraps from her own life into monuments of yearning, heartbreak, grief, and love.
So I never thought I’d say this about a Taylor Swift song, but “Cleveland!” is way too specific.
Clearly, Swift had some things she wanted to get off her chest. She’s seen the comments and the sneers about her tacky outfits, her gangly dancing, and that “scathing take ’bout how I’m fake.” She wanted to make it clear that her new husband, Travis Kelce, likes her just the way she is, thank you very much!
Of course, Swift has used music to confront her critics before, but never quite so clunkily. “Cleveland!” has all the defiance and self-indulgence of “Blank Space” and “Mean,” yet none of their finesse. “Cleveland!” has a list of reputational gripes like “Shake It Off,” yet none of its broad appeal.
Who is this for? The only reasonable assumption is that “Cleveland!” was a pet project gone horribly wrong, a song written for Swift and Swift alone. (OK, maybe Kelce likes it, too.)
Outside their bubble of apparent marital bliss, “Cleveland!” will go down as one of the worst songs in Swift’s discography.
‘Pink Clouding’
“Pink Clouding” is reminiscent of the deliriously fun “Midnights” deep cut, “Hits Different,” in that both sound like they belong in the opening credits for an early-aughts rom-com.
Lyrically, however, “Pink Clouding” recounts a breakup from the opposite perspective. This time, Swift casts herself as the one who leaves — not the one who’s left crying at the bar and throwing up on the street, wondering where it all went wrong.
The song takes its name from a common “honeymoon phase” in addiction recovery, when, according to Healthline, premature euphoria and overconfidence obscure the difficult reality of the recovery process.
Swift describes herself as “pink clouding” because she clung to a new muse while still reeling from heartbreak. She knows exactly where it all went wrong, and her frank self-reflection is a refreshing change of pace: “Neither of us knew at the time that I was a liar,” she sings. “Years later, I still wonder how to tell you sorry.”
The song’s shimmering, cinematic production belies the tragedy within. “Pink Clouding” is a story of anti-star-crossed lovers, pushed together — and apart — by cruel happenstance and false hope.
‘Babylon’
The recurring guitar riff in “Babylon” sounds like it was pulled straight from the “Speak Now” vault — a vintage flourish that complements the song’s lyrical themes.
Swift likes to get sentimental and wistful in her album closers (“The Lakes,” “The Manuscript”). She’s also been known to spend her final minutes doling out advice (“It’s Time to Go,” “Dear Reader”). “Babylon” satisfies both instincts.
Swift gets nostalgic for her hometown and hand-me-down sweaters — notably, the mall returns as Swift’s favorite metaphor for bygone golden days, as in “August” and “Coney Island” — but simultaneously warns her audience against “nostalgia as a weapon to hurt yourself,” or “the self-harm of never being where you are.”
Getting advice from a pop star to live in the moment could easily scan as corny, but Swift makes it work. Thankfully, she doesn’t reference her fabulous wealth or football-star husband — stuff that would make it pretty easy to live in the moment, I’d imagine — but instead evokes images of family and fleeting youth to make her point.
“You hate this song,” she sings in the chorus. “But you wake up on the train with your headphones gone / Then that melody is all you want.”
I remember what it was like to be 15 and roll my eyes at a pop song, for fear of being perceived as cringey or immature. But fifteen years later, if a DJ spins that very same pop song, I’m probably the first one on the dancefloor.
Final Grade: 6.6/10
Worth listening to: “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Elizabeth Taylor,” “Opalite,” “Father Figure,” “Ruin the Friendship,” “Honey,” “The Life of a Showgirl (featuring Sabrina Carpenter),” “Patient Zero,” “Pink Clouding,” “Babylon”
Filler: “Eldest Daughter”
Skip: “Actually Romantic,” “Wi$h Li$t,” “Wood,” “Cancelled!,” “Cleveland!”
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