On Friday, October 3rd, Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album titled “The Life of a Showgirl” was released on all streaming services. The album featured 12 songs, totaling 41 minutes and 40 seconds in length. Since its highly anticipated release, the album has solicited millions of opinions across social media. Whether the reactions were positive or negative, the album undeniably made an impact as it received 249.9 million streams on its first day, according to the global Spotify chart. These streaming numbers broke the previous record, which was also held by Taylor Swift. Other records broken included the most pre-saved album on Spotify, the second-highest first-day U.S. sales in the modern era with 2.7 million copies, and the most vinyl units sold in a single week. Record-breaking is not a new concept surrounding Taylor Swift’s album releases, and neither is backlash.

Immediately following the album’s release, fans had taken to social media to voice their opinions. Shockingly, the overwhelming majority were not speaking highly of the album. Even the most loyal of Swift’s fans, called “Swifties,” made comments about the album, saying it is “Taylor’s first miss,” “the death of Taylor’s lyricism,” and “a huge step down from her last album.” A major source of the criticism regarding the album is heavily based on the lyrics and writing of the songs. In past works, Swift has been praised for advanced, deep, and well-thought-out lyrics. One of the most powerful examples of this is with her 8th album, “Folklore”. This album is a storytelling album, and Swift’s lyricism reflects that. Lines such as “The course of true love never did run smooth” and “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps” are examples of the advanced lyricism found in the album. The albums following Folklore stuck strongly to this theme of high-level lyricism, that is, until “The Life of a Showgirl”. Among the album’s 12 songs, there were many cringeworthy lyrics. One song specifically, “CANCELLED!” is responsible for one of the most talked about lyrics, “did you girlboss too close to the sun?” This saying was popularized by a viral TikTok sound, and upon hearing this lyric many fans criticized Swift for “trying to be relevant.” Other scrutinized lyrics come from the album’s 5th track, “Eldest Daughter.” In the world of Taylor Swift albums, “track 5’s” live in infamy for being one of the most popular songs of the entire album. Among social media, it is mutually agreed that “The Life of a Showgirl” is an outlier from this trend. Some lyrics specifically include, “Every joke’s just trolling and memes,” “But I’m not a bad– and this isn’t savage,” and “So we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire.” These lyrics, while not necessarily poor writing, are grasping too hard at relevance. They mention trending things like “memes” and “trolling,”  but have the opposite effect, and make Swift’s lyrics seem cheap and “cringy.”

Overall, despite not being Swift’s best album, “The Life of a Showgirl” has still solicited a huge response across the world. In its first week of release, it has sold over 4 million copies and is on track to double that number by the end of its first month. Nevertheless, “Swifties” are loyal fans and are already highly anticipating Swift’s next release.