*fries flung everywhere* "Different PLACES!" -- Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl

Due later this year, more soon, etc. etc.

https://variety.com/2025/music/news/taylor-swift-announces-album-the-life-of-a-showgirl-1236487135/

https://i.imgur.com/b6CQLfH.png

1. The Fate of Ophelia
2. Elizabeth Taylor
3. Opalite
4. Father Figure
5. Eldest(?) Daughter
6. Ruin the Friendship
7. Actually Romantic
8. Wi$h Li$t
9. Wood
10. CANCELLED!
11. Honey
12. The Life of a Showgirl

this is the apparently leaked tracklist

looks like a redditor might have gotten their wish from 2 years ago?

Anyone think an Ophelia (Hamlet) related Taylor Swift song would be a great idea?

Rhyming "Ophelia" with "I feel ya" would be a great rhyme, especially with the thematic similarities between this character and some experiences seen in Taylor Swift songs

Found that because i could've sworn TS already had a song about Ophelia. Guess it was inevitable.

Looking forward to the late-period Swift album where she's "just like Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."

Those titles sound like they were created by an LLM trained on Taylor Swift songs.

apparently this marks her return to max martin and shellback as collaborators. *struggles to be optimistic* idk maybe it'll be good?

maybe that means this one will have some melodies

pre-covers?

someone please explain *fries flung everywhere*

someone please explain *fries flung everywhere*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikTo9F5wHAs

Eldest(?) Daughter

I really hope this is the title

tracklist reads like a Lana Del Rey fan-fic

pre-covers?

We've never repeated an artist, but I admit the temptation. (Then again after the effort that went into One More Tune I almost want to give things a little space first.)

Just release the last one again and change the track titles.

Roffle.

There's probably a 50/50 chance "Wood" was written after watching "Ed Wood"

Opalite- another installment in the shiny, sparkly things series?

There's probably a 50/50 chance "Wood" was written after watching "Ed Wood"

A tribute to late singer of Mother Love Bone

or an answer song to "Would?"

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a4/The_Life_of_a_Showgirl_-_Taylor_Swift_album_artwork.png

Plus alternates:
https://preview.redd.it/taylor-swift-has-unveiled-alternate-covers-for-the-life-of-v0-bnytode6nvif1.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=520ec5de82701203d009f5ca4c7175b2d6ce897e

https://preview.redd.it/taylor-swift-has-unveiled-alternate-covers-for-the-life-of-v0-yfesgbl6nvif1.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=75d062cb17f1daa33f1a32a05c68b33753c2f202

https://preview.redd.it/taylor-swift-has-unveiled-alternate-covers-for-the-life-of-v0-7xl2d1r6nvif1.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=14434c90c065e17a2c4f0f68221da0ddec4b7a3a

On the podcast, Swift explained, “This represents the end of my night. So when I’m on tour, I have the same day every single day. ... And my day ends with me in a bathtub, not usually in a bedazzled dress.”

She continued, “I wanted to sort of like glamorize all the different aspects of how that tour felt. And that’s how that felt to like be at the end of the night when all this has gone down. You won’t be able to get to bed till four in the morning after this. But you had to jump through 50 million hoops in this obstacle course that is your show. And you did it. You got two more in a row. But you did it tonight.

“And the reason I wanted to have sort of like an offstage moment as the main album cover is because this album isn’t really about what happened to me on stage. It’s about what I was going through offstage. So I didn’t want to have like the lights are bright, I’m on the stage is the main album cover. It’s just this. This, to me, tells more of what the actual content, lyrically, of the album are.”

graphic design is my passion

lol

every alternate cover is better than the standard one

I wish there was a fifth one with her just sitting on the couch in her jammies watching TV.

*updates tealandorange.xls*

apparently this marks her return to max martin and shellback as collaborators. *struggles to be optimistic* idk maybe it'll be good?

― ivy., Tuesday, August 12, 2025 9:48 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Weren't we all complaining about Antonoff six months ago? Would be nice for her to go a different direction entirely, but I won't be mad if this sounds anything like Reputation.

i for one was not complaining about antonoff

i mean i do love reputation, it's just that her martin/shellback era coincides with her worst lyricism, and i think (to the staggered disbelief of many ppl here) the lyrics were one of ttpd's major strengths, particularly the "observing myself/my fame through a hall of mirrors" quality of "clara bow"

TTPD is the only Swift album I haven't played since the week after its release, so I'm looking forward to this.

i do love the recurring phenomenon of reading a leaked taylor swift tracklist and thinking "these are the worst song titles i've ever seen" and they're all real

I think these are going to be love songs written about her Masters.

Was hoping for a Fifteen sequel called Thirty-Five about how she went ahead and conquered the world and then got around to dating the boy on the football team.

I'm dreading hearing a song titled "CANCELLED!" for some reason

for some reason?

i appreciate her hitting pause on the dynamic she created where each release is her backing up a cement truck and burying the listener in a deluge of music. i barely gave TTPD a real listen because i just became alienated by the sheer amount of music she has released in the last five years, i lost my ability to have an entry point to her as a person and celebrity and thus to her music. she became more of a cult leader to me than an artist, so the framing of "these are 12 pop songs and there is nothing else" is like letting air into a stifling hot room, personally speaking

however, max martin isn't a producer who has ever helmed a great (or even good?) front to back album. just not his thing. ariana grande just did this and made her worst album, just a completely bland vision for what a break up album should be. so that aspect of it i'm like, idk girl. reputation has some stinkers that are somewhat buoyed by antonoff's contributions (tho some of his also stink... ok who is the common denominator... wait...)

i appreciate her hitting pause on the dynamic she created where each release is her backing up a cement truck and burying the listener in a deluge of music

girl, it's not even out yet, who knows what bonus tracks we're getting

midnights was 13 tracks 44 minutes!!! just a recent example

we're the old romantics

I'm dreading hearing a song titled "CANCELLED!" for some reason

It'll just be a skit with an old Scooter Braun voicemail.

girl, it's not even out yet, who knows what bonus tracks we're getting

― ivy., Thursday, August 14, 2025 12:04 PM (seven minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

midnights was 13 tracks 44 minutes!!! just a recent example

― ivy., Thursday, August 14, 2025 12:07 PM (five minutes ago)

am i hallucinating that she said there would be no bonus tracks? i thought she said that on the podcast (which i did not listen to). midnights has (at least?) three different deluxe editions w/ bonus tracks totaling like 25+ originals, so if that happens w/ this one then feel free to strike my statement from the record

There will be no bonus tracks because she'll release two more records next year.

And then she'll tour with King Gizzard.

It seems unlikely she's not going release different versions using all of those alternate album covers

oh yeah i did not listen to that podcast either. and won't be

xxxpost

"This new album is called 'Mornings of a Black Rose.' It's about how I wake up and eat breakfast and then get my make-up done."

It seems unlikely she's not going release different versions using all of those alternate album covers

― New Jack Cutie (President Keyes), Thursday, August 14, 2025 12:44 PM (thirty-seven seconds ago)

well, she's already selling "limited edition deluxe CDs" of each different cover but if you go on her store and look what the deluxe CDs contain, it's a bunch of extra musical shit but says nothing about new or extra tracks

the quote that i'm referencing is this. it seems pretty definitive but maybe there will be some rug pull, idk

“There’s no other songs coming,” she emphasized. “This is 12. There’s not a 13th … there’s not other songs coming. This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time.”

Be pretty funny if she honeymooned in MSG, too.

i think the last time one of her songs was tied to a chord progression she wrote herself was the title track of "lover"?

― ivy., Thursday, July 9, 2026 10:34 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is this true?

as true as you want it to be, friend.

just my conjecture but my impression is that most of the production since has been given to her wholesale by antonoff, dessner etc.

even on reputation she wasn't entirely ceding this to her collaborators, there's a video of her coming up with the progression for "king of my heart" iirc, but it shifted really significantly on lover and thereafter

What happened to Liz Rose? She was a formative collaborator, but given the pedigree doesn't seem to be up to much.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, July 9, 2026 10:17 AM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

She is 68 and iirc stopped collaborating with Swift after her first couple of albums.

just my conjecture but my impression is that most of the production since has been given to her wholesale by antonoff, dessner etc.

― ivy., Thursday, July 9, 2026 11:10 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The Folkmore albums were 100% Dessner writing the baseline track but I didn't really think that was how Antonoff and Swift operated.

You think Antonoff wrote the "Anti-Hero" chord progression? It's the same four chords she's used over and over on everything from "Love Story" to "Blank Space".

What's the Angus Young quote? "I'm sick to death of talking about how we've released 11 identical albums. In fact, we have released 12 completely identical albums."

i could be wrong about her process with antonoff!

nah just keep making stuff up. you're definitely a real journalist.

hey, austin, please stop posting out of nowhere hostilities here, i don’t think i’m doing anything that merits it

nah just keep making stuff up. you're definitely a real journalist.

― austinato (Austin), Thursday, July 9, 2026

Everyone needs masturbatory fantasies, even those who carpetbomb threads.

JUST IN: Piles of garbage from Taylor Swift’s wedding have sold out, after being listed for $25/bag. pic.twitter.com/DlcgNRjCU9

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) July 10, 2026

Just realized the other day that "Tim McGraw" was released 20 years ago, in June 2006. 20 years of Taylor Swift! Seems like we should do a poll one of these days. Also, "Tim McGraw" remains perfect — what a way to introduce yourself.

I’m not sure what it means that an artist who introduced herself to the world with a song that seemed preternaturally self-aware most recently released an album so astonishingly lacking in any real self—awareness.

too much fame and money turns people into weirdos basically

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9jaJtmraXA

this performance gave me a little hope that she still has a great record in her to be release sometime in the future.

Will watch later but just want to say I really love the Toy Story song and find it hilariously infuriating that she could still be writing dozens of those if she wanted to.

only Taylor song I'm aware of that I actually think is pretty good. wonder how it came about. sort of sad they still make Toy Story movies

This medley is a nice reminder that “August” is one of her best tunes. I hope she goes back to doing first person character studies.

This medley is a nice reminder that “August” is one of her best tunes. I hope she goes back to doing first person character studies.

4 new songs tacked on. Seems like she wrote them to tell us she doesn't care what we think of zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

My only exposure to these songs has been people on line shitting on them

new borad description

lmao

I listened to the Cleveland song and it's pretty grim stuff

She’s so boring

"cleveland" combining the grocery store commercial tweeness of "stay stay stay" with her current lyrical approach is really dire lol

"babylon" is fine though, that's surely better than most (all?) of the album?

My wife's brother is married to a showgirl (dancer at Crazy Horse, former Rockette) and when we were in Paris last month for the wedding I asked her what the Crazy girls think of this album. She said they're mostly big Swifties, but they resent her for stealing showgirl valor

Some of her worst music ever. And the songs are indeed getting trashed absolutely everywhere. I get the sense that most goodwill towards her has run out.

kind of funny to see the entire world get off the bus at the same time

Collective exhaustion, the MSG wedding with an ICE collaborator in attendance wasn’t cool basically Bezos wedding level of bad mojo, and meanwhile she’s doing nothing for the world while you’ve got main competition Olivia Rodrigo pulling off entire festival devoted to women’s rights, on short notice, though that’s just one example of the sort of thing among many others that shows her even more as a bit as an avatar of absolutely tone deaf celeb self absorption at a time when people are sharpening their pitchforks. More of a slow motion collapse than Ed Sheeran’s but maybe that’s what is happening and why.

I think she reached a level of cultural domination during the Eras tour that now feels kind of unearned based on the mid albums she’s put out the past 5 years. All the fan soaking releases, and attempts to undercut other female artists on the charts (and snatching song credit from Olivia Rodrigo) finally seemed to catch up with her. The MSG wedding and the dumb Charli diss were mostly met with eyerolls. Just completely an Epstein Class hanger-on at this point.

the life of a showgirl, you might say

I wouldn't write her off just yet. I think she'll come back with another great Antonoff/Dessner collaboration in a couple of years and the world will fall in love with her all over again. She'll do another world tour which will do huge business

Choking laughing at the accuracy pic.twitter.com/f6TKnokg9C

— Sharareh Drury (@shararehdrury) September 27, 2026

brakeman is undefeated

she is the best (Kylie Brakeman, that is)

In our house Chappell Roan was the beginning of the end for Taylor. Both the kids went hard for her and afterwards Taylor had less clout and all of the following shenanigans killed any affection they still had.

Chappell was making great pop music that had a lot of meat on the bone and felt pointedly personal in a way that dulled Taylor’s MOR writing. I still have a copy of 1989, it’s the only TS left in the house.

I think she’ll mostly be making music for her existing fans rather than reaching new ones anymore. Not that that’s such a small audience.

I mean, people are just tired of her. I'm tired of her. She oversaturated the market with too many iterations of the same basic ideas, which got less interesting as they went. And nobody stays on top forever, her imperial phase was longer than most. And really, a 20-year run where she seemed to just keep getting bigger and bigger with every album. I know that's not strictly true numbers-wise, 1989 was her individual album peak, but her cultural impact and imprint just kept growing.

She needs to give people a chance to not hear from or about her for a while. And then also write some better songs. I think there are many versions of her still to come, some of them probably good.

I also think that the one two three punch of Rodrigo, Roan and XCX has diminished her standing at the top of the pops.

It’s hard to keep getting bigger and bigger when more and more people actively dislike you for tangible reasons, not just the usual hating on what’s popular.

she really leaned into playing the heel with her lyrics on the last two albums so i think that just tipped her over into being completely exhausting for a lot of people in a way that she wasn't before

one of those albums was pretty decent but i haven't seen anyone defend the life of a showgirl

despite the public mood clearly turning against her in a new way, there has yet to really be a commercial backlash at all? maybe next album i guess

I wonder if she's now in the position in her personal and professional life where nobody is willing to say or tell her No.

I can't believe there was nobody willing to say that rinsing your fans with a bonus version of a bonus track, on the day two of your biggest chart rivals release a collaborative single, is a really bad look. There must be someone in her camp who can point out that she's doing herself no favours with this kind of behaviour because it plays into the narrative of her being unsupportive of other artists and gaming the system for chart stats.

this came up tonight at the pub and the afters when I realised that I have no interest in hearing these new songs, I don't think an album has ever been so bad that it totally killed my interest in an artist the way this one has

I did this that this release was announced a few weeks ago, before anyone knew that the “Expectations” Remix was dropping, but yeah Swift doesn’t have much goodwill left to burn so it’s being interpreted as another chart block.

The story of her (and Antonoff) jacking the royalties for “Deja Vu” feels like it has become a bigger strike against Swift as time goes on and Rodrigo grows in respect.

I mean, I posted over a year ago now that her announcement for Tortured Poets (while receiving plaudits for Midnights) elicited a physical reaction in me, one of revulsion, like I’d been fed too much of a thing and it’d become toxic— and this was years since I lost interest in any active listening (lost around 1989). Poisoned by her ambient presence, even