On Friday, Sept. 25, Taylor Swift released four new songs as part of her expanded album The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore. The internet has since spent the weekend listening, evaluating, and searching the tracks for hidden meanings. So far, many listeners have concluded that Swift’s new songs leave a lot to be desired, with even die-hard Swifties struggling to defend her artistic choices.
Swift’s original Life of a Showgirl album was released nearly a year ago on Oct. 3. Consisting of 12 tracks such as “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Opalite,” and “Elizabeth Taylor,” the album was partially inspired by Swift’s relationship with her now-husband, football player Travis Kelce.
Life of a Showgirl received middling reviews, with listeners criticising the album for its perceived lack of artistry and emotional depth. One of the most disparaged songs was “Wood,” in which Swift sang about Kelce’s penis through lyrics such as “His love was the key that opened my thighs” and “The curse on me was broken by your magic wand.”
Despite the mixed reactions, Swift has expanded The Life of a Showgirl with The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore. The deluxe edition adds four songs: “Patient Zero,” “Cleveland!,” “Pink Clouding,” and “Babylon.” However, it hasn’t been the return to form some fans hoped for: The new songs have drawn an even poorer reception than Swift’s original album.
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Much of the criticism has focused on “Patient Zero” and “Cleveland!.” Some listeners have criticised Swift for flatly speaking over a beat on both tracks, saying they sound like trite royalty-free stock music or AI-generated tunes. A viral edit by X user @sweetenerpacket played “Cleveland!” over a 5-Minute Crafts video to illustrate the point, with several viewers noting that they hadn’t immediately realised the audio had been changed. Meanwhile, another edit by TikTok user @fae.laughs.a.lot likened “Cleveland!” to the opening theme for The Office.
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“Cleveland!” has also drawn attention for its unromantic take on love. In it, Swift insists that she’s happy in her relationship regardless of outsiders’ opinions, while setting a surprisingly low bar for romance with lyrics such as “You only need to find one person in this entire world / Who doesn’t find you completely insufferable.” That’s a far cry from her 2019 song “Lover” in which Swift sang, “With every guitar string scar on my hand, I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover.”
Yet while Swift’s husband apparently doesn’t consider her “completely insufferable,” the same can’t be said for listeners’ thoughts on her latest lyrics.
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Some listeners have also noted that while Swift’s previous relationships inspired her to pen songs such as the sweeping 10-minute ballad “All Too Well,” her husband Kelce has so far mostly sparked a “buncha songs about dick and Ohio.”
“it is so fucking funny that she’s written like 3 songs about her husband that are all like ‘isn’t it so awesome how he plays football and has a podcast?’ and then writes dozens of incredible songs abt her situationship from 3 years ago,” wrote X user @theIesbianqueen in a post that has gained 38,000 likes. “never change diva.”
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Taylor Swift fans struggle to praise the new songs
Even some of Swift’s most ardent fans have had difficulty finding much to praise in The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore. Reactions from big-name fan Swiftologist and YouTube channel Chats & Reacts have gone viral, with the former stating that “it’s so hard to to be the Swiftologist at a time like this.”
“The ‘fuck the haters, I love my man’ stuff doesn’t land as well when the music is horrible,” said the Swiftologist, describing “Cleveland!” as a “very petulant, petty ‘Wood’ part 2.”
“I really hope that Showgirl doesn’t get a nomination for album of the year, because I think she’s living in a delusional world. I really think that she thinks that this is a great album and she did a great job. And it’s not, and she didn’t.”
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Meanwhile, Chats & Reacts have drawn attention for their positive and expressive reactions to “Patient Zero” — a response many online commenters believe is either forced or insincere.
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As of writing, The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore has a score of 39 on Metacritic, making it one of the worst album ratings on the website. Some X users have compared its performance to Katy Perry’s widely derided 2024 album 143, which scored two points lower at 37.
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Despite the generally negative response to The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, some Swifties remain adamantly defensive of Swift’s new content. Even in the songs themselves, Swift proudly declares that she’s happy in her relationship and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. That may serve her well, because this extended album was an encore few seem to have been asking for.
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Topics
X/Twitter
Taylor Swift
