Five songs into her new album, Taylor Swift makes a bold admission.
“I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness. I’ve been dying just from trying to seem cool,” she sings over piano chords in “Eldest Daughter.”
Of course Swift’s legion of devotees would scoff at the notion that their heroine was anything but a pop goddess, their very own Glinda the Good Witch sent to comfort with lyrical poetry and aid crumpled hearts.
On “The Life of a Showgirl,” out Friday, Oct. 3, Swift does not abandon the relatable big sister vibes that propelled her into rarified billionaire air. But she’s also a 35-year-old woman in love who proudly flaunts the physical and emotional attributes of her man, Travis Kelce.
For her 12th album, Swift shakes off the melancholy of 2024’s “The Tortured Poets Department” for a dozen brisk songs infused with the playfulness of “1989” and the velvet-sheathed-knife lyrics of “Reputation.”
