What are critics saying about Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore’? | indy100

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Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore was released last week, with four brand new songs for Swifties to consume and dissect.

The new songs include the lead single 'Patient Zero' with a music video premiering at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday (September 27), starring Swift alongside actors Colin Farrell and Dakota Johnson. Plus, the three tracks, 'Cleveland!', 'Pink Clouding,' and 'Babylon'.

"About a year ago, you guys did a truly unfathomable thing. Something that completely blew my mind… You gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history," Swift said in her deluxe album announcement via social media.

Taylor Swift accepts the Video of the Year Award for “The Fate of Ophelia” onstage during the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) at Peacock Theater on September 27, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

"I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album. Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs. I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made.”

The Life of a Showgirl was released last year and was met with mixed to favourable reviews with some decent tracks such as singles 'The Fate of Ophelia,' 'Opalite,' and 'Elizabeth Taylor' but other tracks such as 'Wood,' 'Actually Romantic' and 'Cancelled' weren't as well received.

What are critics saying?

Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott

Following the release of The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, the four tracks have received unfavourable reviews from critics, with the general consensus being the songs 'Pink Clouding' and 'Babylon' are the best of the lot.

According to music review aggregate website, Metacritic, the album currently has a rating of 39 out of 100.

The Independent's Roisin O'Connor wrote in her two-star review, "...you wish she’d turn her observational gifts to something more than old boyfriends, not least when this is only producing duds. Where is Swift, artistically, now? Because it sounds like she’s flailing."

"The Life of a Showgirl: Encore Edition is just as derivative and flat as the original album. I’d rather see the wedding pics, please Taylor," wrote The Telegraph's Poppie Platt, also giving it two-stars.

The Guardian's Laura Snaps noted in her two-star rating, "You could point to their very loose shared theme, each taking different angles on the gap between a facade and an intimately understood truth – though the greater truth affirmed by this batch of music is that the more Swift releases, the weaker her output gets."

"By staying dutifully, disappointingly in step with the supercilious tone and idle sonic landscape of that album, these tracks add little of consequence to a project that already had little of consequence to say," commented Slant Magazine's Michael Savio giving the album one-and-half stars.

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