On Taylor Swift's 'The Life of a Showgirl,' love and reputation are on the line

Who is Taylor Swift’s heir apparent? Her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” offers an answer. It’s Taylor Swift.

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Her last album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” ended with the cautionary Clara Bow, an allegory that seemed to suggest her tenure atop the cultural mainstream was inherited from stars of the past, like the namechecked Stevie Nicks — and that a new generation of younger, elastic female pop performers could soon take her place.

In 2025, there are many to choose from: Consider Chappell Roan’s full-throated theatrics, Olivia Rodrigo’s fiery punk-pop feminism, Sabrina Carpenter’s cheeky sexuality.

In the knotty themes of Friday’s “The Life of a Showgirl,” best illustrated in the title track, Swift asserts that the baton hasn’t been passed, but rather shared. Because she isn’t going anywhere.

“And all the headshots on the walls / Of the dance halls are of the b--- / Who wish I’d hurry up and die,” she sings with a wink, “But I'm immortal now, baby dolls / I couldn't if I tried.” Notably, if she has a chosen successor in someone else, it’s the album’s sole feature: Carpenter, who sings on the stomp-clap closer in her newly adopted twang. The mournful glissando of lap steel — the album's most country moment — arrives only with Carpenter's introduction. The western genre is Swift’s past and Carpenter's future.

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