Taylor Swift thinks honest feedback about her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, is a good thing — it might even be actually romantic.
“I welcome the chaos,” Swift, 35, explained during a Tuesday, October 7, interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “The rule of show business is, if it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.”
The 14-time Grammy winner, who released her 12th studio record on Friday, October 3, noted that she has a lot of “respect” for “subjective opinions on art.”
“I’m not the art police,” she added with a smile. “It’s, like, everybody is allowed to feel exactly how they want, and what our goal is as entertainers is to be a mirror.”
She said that “oftentimes, an album is a really, really wild way to look at yourself,” noting that what she is going through in her life right now — newly engaged to fiancé Travis Kelce and coming off the biggest worldwide tour in history — may not connect with everyone who listens to her music.
“What you’re going through in your life is going to affect whether you relate to the music that I’m putting out at any given moment,” she said.
Swift wrote the majority of The Life of a Showgirl — produced entirely by Max Martin and Shellback, who previously worked with the pop star on Red, 1989 and Reputation — during the European leg of her Eras Tour last year. The album contains songs like “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Opalite” and “W$sh Li$t,” which all center on her romance with Kelce, 36. There are also tracks like “Wood,” filled with innuendos about the NFL star’s apparently well-endowed “manhood.”
The Life of a Showgirl sold 2.7 million physical copies in the first 24 hours after its release, becoming the second-largest sales week for any album in the modern era. Swift’s coinciding film, The Official Release Party of a Showgirl — featuring the debut of her “The Fate of Ophelia” music video, BTS clips and explanations to the songs from Swift herself — hit No. 1 at the box office despite only playing in theaters for three days.
Still, reviews have been varied from both critics and fans. Variety and Rolling Stone praised the record, while outlets like The Guardian and The London Standard — the latter of which claimed the album was filled with “penis metaphors and poor little rich girl tales” — were much more harsh.
While speaking to Lowe on Tuesday, Swift emphasized that she has no worries about the immediate The Life of a Showgirl feedback. “I have such an eye on legacy when I’m making my music,” she explained. “I know what I made. I know I adore it.”
While appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, October 6, Swift expressed thanks to fans for “having fun” with the record and embracing a different side of her that she doesn’t always put forward.
“I love to showcase aspects of my personality that are in the extreme,” she explained. “Tortured Poets Department, my last album, was really highlighting the facets of me that are a writer that’s earnest and stoic and raw and the sprawling part of me that just wants to be, like, ‘I’m just going to write everything and give you everything I wrote.’ And pain, just excruciating detail. That was the character of the poet, and then this, I wanted to be the character of a showgirl. There are other aspects of a person’s personality where you’re like, funny and feisty and having a blast and flirty and tongue in cheek and a little scandalous and friendly.”
The Life of a Showgirl is out now.
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