FEATURE:
The Life of a Showgirl
PHOTO CREDIT: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott/Taylor Swift
What Impact and Effects Will Taylor Swift’s Twelfth Studio Album Create?
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SIX days ago…
IMAGE CREDIT: TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management/Guardian Design
Taylor Swift announced the release of her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. You can pre-order the album here. This TIME article writes how the release and announcement is essentially Swiftynomics. This term is the title of an upcoming book,, Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy, that is expected on 27th January, 2026. “Swiftynomics assesses the complex economic lives of American women. Drawing insights from pathbreakers like Taylor Swift, Misty Heggeness digs into the data revealing women’s hidden contributions and aspirations—the unexamined value they create by following their own ambitions. She confronts misconceptions about the roles women play in today’s economy by highlighting the abundance of productive activity occurring in their daily lives and acknowledging the barriers they still face”. There are positives and negatives associated with this album announcement. In terms of what it will do for the music and gig economy. It is a moment of positivity in a very bleak moment of history:
“On Aug. 12, Taylor Swift announced her 12th original studio album, The Life of a Showgirl and a sparkly orange era on her website.
This news spread like a ray of golden sunshine, cutting through some bleak headlines for women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lost its female leader because President Donald Trump did not like the published jobs numbers. And as TIME reported, this labor market data also revealed that women are leaving the labor market in droves
The next day on New Heights, Jason and Travis Kelce’s podcast, Taylor complimented Travis’ sweatshirt. “Thanks, sweetie, it’s the color of your eyes,” responded Travis, sending Swifties into a tailspin.
Finally, Swift revealed more details. Her album will be released on Oct. 3 and she shared its artwork and tracklist. The announcement is not just a reflection of modern American gender dynamics, but a masterclass in modern advertising.
In less than 24 hours, everything turned orange. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was in on it. The Empire State Building, New York Times Square, and the Kansas City Union Station lit up in orange lights Tuesday evening. M&Ms, Playdoh, and Sesame Street came out to play, flouting orange and the number 12 in honor of Taylor Swift’s twelfth album. The Olive Garden flashed a garlic bread turned showgirl in honor of the era’s new album title. Petco brought out Meredith, Taylor’s cat, in an orange haze. Even Aquaphor hand lotion showed up in sparkle. The list of brands getting in on the mania went on and on.
Orange became the new social marketing technique. Business classes in universities across the nation will ponder Taylor’s successful grip on our psyche. With the economy-moving Eras Tour behind us, companies had caught on to Swift’s success even if they could not understand how she had done it. They were grasping for the attention of Taylor’s fans, riding the coattails of her brand.
But what is Taylor’s brand? “I am in the business of human emotion,” said Swift while discussing her decision to buy back her music catalog from the private equity firm Shamrock Capital with Jason and Travis. “I would so much rather lead heart-first in something like this.” Not music, not entertainment, not writing, but human emotion.
And though Swift maintains she has not made such business decisions because of the projected returns or dividends, her emotion-focused approach has still been key to her success. Throughout her career, Swift has remained true to herself and invested in getting to know and understand her audience. She builds her product around human emotions—hers and ours.
The day before the announcement, I had been working with a librarian discussing how to build research muscle among a new class of incoming freshmen who would be taking my new class, The Academic Lore of Taylor Swift. The librarian began telling me she came to the fandom late, that the romance between Taylor and Travis really drew her in because it gave her so much joy to watch.
More than a million listeners tuned in to the New Heights podcasts the night of Swift’s announcement. The emotional tug of a new announcement or any crumb of new information into the life of the artist had a magnetic pull far and wide. Human emotion sells.
In critical, historical moments like the one we are in now, where immigrants are being unfairly targeted by the federal government, inequality is ever increasing, and moms cannot catch a break in the labor market, it sells even more. As advertisers continue paying attention to who’s controlling the market today, they’ll look to megastar influencers like Taylor Swift and latch themselves to her sparkly orange belt.
She will, in turn, look to her fans who are more than happy to dig deep into their pockets for a chance to experience the human emotions she’s selling, whether via CD, vinyl, cassette, and any other form. Maybe all of her fans won’t buy the orange Playdoh, but they will buy the music that she ever-so-delicately, perfectly, and precisely laid out to a sound track—and they will devour it. She’ll make them happy in what might be seen as otherwise depressing times.
This is what I call “Swiftynomics.” It is women’s ability to dominate consumption and marketing patterns by harnessing their human experiences for economic benefit. It is women investing in one another, and it thrives today, even in these challenging times”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott/Taylor Swift
There are a lot of positives in what TIME write. How her fans will get an opportunity to purchase this new album on a variety of formats. That is will boost physical music sales. Also, the excitement over an album release. In the modern age, can artists generate the same kind of fervour and anticipation as decades ago? Ass we can stream albums and so much music is out there, the fact Taylor Swift can get people buying physical music in such huge quantities is to be applauded. In spite of her enormous wealth, it is inspiring that she is this successful businesswoman. Someone who took bac control of her music and has re-recorded studio albums. Someone who deals in human emotions and felt like, at a point in her career, she was being taken advantage of and her rights and control was being taken away. Now, as the biggest artist in the world, she is inspirational to other women in music. Someone who will give a leg up to other artists. If the recent Eras Tour was a record-breaking phenonium, when she tours this album, what impact will that have?! Something even bigger! They could have hugely positive impact on the towns and cities she plays. Also, a new Taylor Swift album is going to be quality thing. She is not an artist who sells and is successful because of hype. The songwriting is always incredible. At thirty-five, Taylor Swift is recognised as one of the finest songwriters in the world. You feel she could be releasing music for decades.
PHOTO CREDIT: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott/Taylor Swift
Seeing this powerful and accomplished woman at the forefront of the music industry is incredible. Someone who has all this success but is very much not someone who does it for money. She gives money to charity and helps others. With each album comes a new persona and a sense of reinvention. Like Madonna in the 1980s and 1990s, here is a huge global superstar who is growing bigger and bigger. I am very pleased that there is going to be this whole campaign and aesthetic. The visuals of the album and photoshoots. What the songs will be about and whether the album will be conceptual. Is it charting a fictional showgirl and her life or discussing Swift’s own experiences of being a modern showgirl in a sense. Her life on the stage and being under the lens all of the time? According to the Wikipedia page for the album: “Swift described the project as a vibrant and lively album about her life as an entertainer. The Life of a Showgirl contains 12 songs, with Sabrina Carpenter featured on the title track. Photographed by Mert and Marcus, Swift adopted a provocative, showgirl-inspired, orange theme for the album; journalists described it as the most glamorous and flamboyant visual aesthetic of her career. She announced the album on the August 13, 2025, episode of New Heights, the sports podcast by Jason and Travis Kelce, which became the most-watched podcast premiere ever”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott/Taylor Swift
There are mixed blessings regarding the potential explosion that will come with The Life of a Showgirl. The song titles are already out there. The Fate of Ophelia and Elizabeth Taylor. Actually Romantic. Maybe a mix of personal insights and nods to historic and contemporary women. Swift has created this new aesthetic and colour scheme for The Life of a Showgirl. However, as The Times write, has a more girl-next-door and ‘innocent’ look and appeal been replaced by something more provocative, unwholesome or risqué?!
“Clad in a silver bejewelled bralet and fishnet tights, Swift has leant into the traditional showgirl aesthetic for the album’s artwork, complete with bedazzled corsetry, ostrich feathers, and of course, her trademark red lipstick. In various snaps, taken by the legendary fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, she pouts and looks suggestively down the camera lens, all vampish insouciance. Like a sad, sexy siren.
Is it all a touch … male gaze? Unlike some of her industry counterparts, including Sabrina Carpenter, with whom she collaborated on the album’s title track, Swift has never been one to sexualise her public image. At least not quite so explicitly, anyway. Of course, regardless of what she wears and does, Swift has always been subjected to just as much (if not more) objectification as any other woman in the public eye. But sex hasn’t been something she’s centralised, or even discussed.
That looks set to change with this album, which could be her most illicit yet. There’s even some erotic melancholy too. The album’s first track, The Fate of Ophelia, aligns with artwork featuring a recreation of John Everett Millais’ painting depicting the tragic Shakespearean character drowning after she has been driven to madness.
PHOTO CREDIT: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott/Taylor Swift
While I’m all for women celebrating their sexuality, particularly if they’ve been relentlessly slut-shamed for most of their adult and teenage lives, I can’t help but feel that this sultry new era is out of sync with everything Swift has told us about who she is: the one we can relate to rather than look up to, the goofy best friend rather than the unapproachable hot girl, the one in the bleachers rather than the cheer captain. She’s someone you’d spend hours trying to decode a man’s texts with; the woman you’d recruit for a mission to make your ex jealous. Part of her popularity is rooted in the fact that she’s always felt like one of us.
That’s not to say Swift can’t or shouldn’t reinvent herself — if anything, that’s what her record-breaking Eras tour was all about. But if The Life of a Showgirl is all coquettish glances, flirty poses and fluttering eyelashes, it’s going to inevitably feel less like an album that’s for the girls, and more like one for the boys.
Suffice to say, this diehard Swiftie is a little wary of the Showgirl era. Like most businesses, music moves where money goes, and given Carpenter’s success, this new album could well be the result of industry juggernauts trying to cash in on what’s doing well right now. I’d like to give Swift a little more credit than that; she’s never been one to bend to trends”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna/PHOTO CREDIT: Madonna
Artists like Madonna broke down barriers and blazed a trail for women who followed. She received so much criticism and misogyny when her work became more expressive, revealing and sexual. Have we taken a step back when it comes to how huge female Pop artists are judged when they are independent, confident and push boundaries?! In terms of the images, others have said how Swift is sparkly and fabulous. A classic showgirl. Others noting how Swift has taken back control of her image and body. Some have noted how the cover for The Life of a Showgirl could be Taylor Swift’s reference to John Everett Millais's Hamlet-inspired painting, Ophelia. Not the first time a women in Pop references this. Kate Bush, in promotional images for Hounds of Love’s second side, The Ninth Wave, embodies images of Ophelia. I think, like Sabrina Carpenter and her upcoming album, Man’s Best Friend, too much attention could be on sex. People judging Taylor Swift and her image rather than focusing on the music. I wonder about potential negative impacts on Taylor Swift’s mental and physical health. Her Eras Tour, running from May to December 2024, became the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. Is there pressure to top that?! What impact will that have on her life? Someone whose privacy and personal life are exposed and discussed constantly, has she reached a point where the hysteria and adulation means people are expecting bigger and bigger?!
IN THIS PHOTO: Sabrina Carpenter, seen here at the GRAMMYs earlier this year, will feature on The Life of a Showgirl’s title track (Taylor Swift’s twelfth studio album is released on 3rd October)/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Also, many artists feel like Taylor Swift is taking too much focus away from others. Her albums stream in the billions and the money she generates is immense. Is the industry being too dominated by one person? Is that a good thing? The Life of a Showgirl could well create records and lead to massive things. Taylor Swift going down in history as the most important artist ever. However, her relationship with Travis Kelche could also be impacted. How much time and privacy will they have when this new album is released?! You do wonder whether they can ever be an ordinary couple. Instead, there is a danger that their every move will be scrutinised! Laura Snapes, writing for The Guardian, asked if The Life of a Showgirl will propel Taylor Swift to almost unseen levels of fame and success. Is this more of a bad than good thing?! What impact will that have on Swift and the music industry as a whole? Something that will make her and Travis Kelche famous beyond words, is this their plan all along? In some ways, the multi-format campaign for her previous album, The Tortured Poet’s Department (2024) and its excess has led Taylor Swift to rethink a bit and revise her promotional angle. Despite a demand which will exceed all her other albums, some lessons have been learned:
“Swift’s new album does not arrive until 3 October, but this week’s edition of the industry newsletter Record of the Day led with a tongue-in-cheek congratulations to “everyone at EMI and Taylor Swift on her latest No 1 album The Life of a Showgirl”. Supernova success is a foregone conclusion: last year’s introspective The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) was the first album to pass a billion streams in its first week, reaching 1.76bn.
IN THIS PHOTO: Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift after Kansas won the AFC Championship in January/PHOTO CREDIT: Ashley Landis/AP
Swift is beloved on an unfathomable scale. She is one of the last monocultural pop stars. You suspect she could have toured Eras for five years and still sold out every night. Her devout Swifties, casual pop fans and curious rubberneckers will likely propel Showgirl past TTPD’s record, such is the critical mass behind her, no matter what it sounds like. Her reign, says Annie Zaleski, the author of Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind the Songs, is unprecedented because “she’s so consistent and continuing to evolve”.
But on the podcast, Swift sounded surprisingly aware of the limitations of TTPD – too wordy, too long, too downbeat – and keen to course-correct. That project, she said, had been about “catharsis”, “mess” and “rawness” following an apparently humiliating fling with the 1975’s Matty Healy. TTPD comprised 16 songs; and on release day, Swift dropped a previously unannounced 15-track sister album, The Anthology. For Showgirl, she said she craved “focus and discipline”: just 12 songs going behind the scenes of her Eras life, with “melodies that were so infectious you’re almost angry”. She made a surprising admission about her recent quality control: “Keeping the bar really high is something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time.”
Swift’s monitoring also cannot have failed to note that her brand of hermetically sealed, grown-up pop has been ceding ground to Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and Charli xcx, who have seized culture’s centre with less inhibited and far rowdier hits than the exacting Swift has ever made. Or perhaps ever could: one insurmountable difference is that Roan and xcx are unlikely to ever monitor fan desire or cater to it. And Martin, despite being second only to John Lennon and Paul McCartney for having the most US No 1 singles, has waned as a hitmaker. “I don’t think she can get ahead of those artists because she’s such a millennial pop star,” said a publicist for comparably superstar acts who asked to remain nameless. “She can’t create trends like those younger artists because they have a lot less to lose.”
There is a sense that Swift is catching up: that she’s clocked criticisms, read the room. She released 19 physical variants for TTPD, and was accused of exploiting fans and damaging the environment with excess vinyl production, a practice Billie Eilish has called “wasteful”. Showgirl appears to have a fairly industry-standard four. She is also competing with herself: if there is a tour, says the music business expert Eamonn Forde, it will have to take a significantly different form to Eras – residency-style, perhaps Vegas or in a bespoke venue, as recently done by Adele – to avoid unfavourable comparisons to the biggest tour of all time”.
A new Taylor Swift album can not simply be an album. It is a campaign, an era. A new invention. A chapter! It is a potential globe-straddling, billion-dollar industry that could be released on multiple formats, have reissues and a new album of extras and then lead to a gigantic tour that breaks records and sees Swift pushing the limits of what a live show could be. Will she be able to sustain a string of sets that last three hours or more?! At what point does she have to strip back and slow down? And will Swifites (the name for her fanbase), the industry, critics and everyone allow that?! I like to think of the positives. The excitement fans are feeling. The quality of the songs and seeing a Pop artist take back control of her music and, with it, releasing new albums that are influencing women and girls around the world. Artists coming through that cite Swift as an idol. I want to end with exerts from an article from Rose Gallagher for Stylist. She explains that fans are excited about The Life of a Showgirl because Taylor Swift fandom and admiration is an antidote to loneliness:
“The Eras tour changed the way I saw live music. Since then, talking to fans has become a real passion project of mine. Meeting Chappell Roan’s fans at her concerts and making videos of their outfits has been one of my favourite ever projects. I also got a real-life lesson that you can’t judge a book by its cover when I covered the final Ozzy Osbourne gig. Those heavy metal fans were some of the nicest people I’d ever met – I’ve never been in a friendlier fandom.
The reason the internet is in a meltdown about Swift’s next album, The Life Of A Showgirl, is that we can get excited about it together. It’s a shared joy. We won’t just listen to it in the comfort of our homes – we’ll savour it as a collective. TikTok will be awash with fan theories. YouTube tutorials will emerge recreating Swift’s make-up from her music videos. We’re all invited to bask in the digital footprint, and it connects us.
So, just why do we crave these connections with other people? The truth is, when we get older, we can love our friends and be in different life cycles – and this can sometimes feel exceptionally lonely. Some of my friends are raising young children. I can’t relate and I never will, as I have decided I want to be child-free. Many are trying to conceive, and the road isn’t smooth; I’m thinking of three different friends right now. It’s a heartbreak like no other for them and there are no words of comfort for a sadness like that. Then there’s me, caring for elderly parents and knowing that one day our shared responsibility for my brother with special needs will be mine. Every day feels like I’m growing apart from my friends, even though they’re some of the people I love the most in my life. They can’t relate to me and I can’t relate to them. We support one another, for sure, but without a connection to someone who really gets it, you can feel very alone.
Being in a fandom like Taylor Swift’s, you find an antidote to the loneliness. For a moment, someone truly understands your excitement. Something as simple as looking at memes on Instagram is a moment of total bliss. You understand the jokes. You know the lore. You get the references. You finally have people who truly get what you’re excited about, and they feel it too. It’s a nice feeling”.
On 3rd October, we will see what Taylor Swift’s twelfth studio album has to offer. The Life of a Showgirl seems to beckon in a new phase. The album cover is colourful, bright and poetic at the same time. Compared to black-and-white images for the covers of The Tortured Poets Department, folklore (2020) and reputation (2017), this is an update of a cover like 2019’s Lover. The twelve tracks of her twelfth studio album are intriguing. With only one collaboration (the title track will feature Sabrina Carpenter) and maybe not the same excessiveness of The Tortured Poet’s Department (multiple formats ands repacking did seem a bit too much!). Above all else, The Life of a Showgirl is the latest scene and chapter from…
A modern-day cultural phenomenon.