News - Taylor Swift's new album 'The Life of a Showgirl' has some of her best songs in years — and some of her cringiest

Taylor Swift's new album, "The Life of a Showgirl," arrived Friday with all the flamboyant, catchy bombast she promised — often deployed to the album's detriment."Showgirl" hits the airwaves mere weeks after Swift's engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce whom she began dating in 2023, and one year after Swift's commercially successful yet critically polarizing 2024 album, "The Tortured Poets Department."This time around, Swift opted not to work with her recent go-to producers, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, reuniting instead with pop powerhouses Max Martin and Karl "Shellback" Schuster, who helped create some of her biggest pre-2020 hits, including "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," "Shake It Off," "Blank Space," and "Delicate."All 12 songs on "Showgirl" are cowritten and co-produced by Swift, Martin, and Shellback. During her appearance on Kelce's podcast, "New Heights," Swift said it felt like an equal team-up for the first time."It felt like all three of us in the room were carrying the same weight as creators," she said. "We've been waiting years to come back together and make this project."Swift also said her main goals for the album were twofold: "Melodies that were so infectious that you're almost angry at it, and lyrics that are just as vivid, but crisp and focused and completely intentional.""Showgirl" was written and produced in Sweden last year, during Swift's downtime on the Eras Tour. In contrast to "Poets," which is dominated by breakup songs, manic spirals, and existential crises, "Showgirl" is an upbeat pop album that Swift said reflects the happier shift in her life behind the curtain."It just comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life," she explained. "That effervescence has come through on this record."Business Insider's senior pop culture writer and resident Swift expert, Callie Ahlgrim, reviewed each track upon first listen. (Skip to the end to see the only songs worth listening to and the album's final score.)