Taylor Swift announced the name of the album on Kelce’s New Heights podcast, which has now racked up over 20 million views, ITV News’ Rishi Davda reports
Taylor Swift is in the UK to mark the release of her highly anticipated album The Life Of A Showgirl.
Her 12th album came out at 5am on Friday 3 October and is expected to top charts around the world.
The Life Of A Showgirl is Swift’s first record since she announced her engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce, and since she revealed in May that she had regained control over her back catalogue.
She had announced the name of the album on Kelce’s New Heights podcast, which has now racked up over 20 million views.
Even before its release, the album broke streaming records, with Spotify announcing on Monday that more than five million fans have pre-saved it, making it the most anticipated album on the platform.
Despite all the buzz, the album has debuted to mixed reviews. The Guardian awarded it only two stars out of five, with critic Alexis Petridis writing the album is “nowhere near as good as it should be given Swift’s talents”. The Telegraph’s Neil McCormick similarly complained the album “lacks the drama of her earlier music” in his three-star review.
Rolling Stone, on the other hand, gave the album a five-star rating and praised its “guitar-strained vulnerabilities” and “scorching sonic choices”. The New York Times’s review was also mostly positive, calling The Life Of A Showgirl a “catchy and substantive but unflashy album”.
Appearing on Capital UK’s breakfast show on Friday morning, Swift spoke about working on the album with Max Martin and Shellback – two producers she hasn’t collaborated with since her 2017 album Reputation.
“It was really exciting to make it because it felt like we had all gone out into the world and learned new skills and honed our powers and then come back together,” she said of reuniting with the duo.
Swift is doing a flurry of press in the UK to promote the record, including a rare television appearance on The Graham Norton Show, which will air on Friday night.
The Life Of A Showgirl follows 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, which was released in the middle of Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour.
Friday night will also see the launch of The Official Release Party Of A Showgirl in cinemas, which features the world premiere of the music video for the single The Fate Of Ophelia, as well as behind-the-scenes footage, lyric videos from the album, and “cut by cut explanations” of what inspired the music.
The 89-minute film will be screened in cinemas around the country, with fans flocking to multiplexes to celebrate the new music together.
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