“The Life of a Showgirl” by Taylor Swift came out on Oct. 3, marking Swift’s 11th studio album. Following the release of her album, “The Tortured Poets Department”, “The Life of a Showgirl” was highly anticipated by “Swifties” all over the globe.

Including hit tracks like “The Fate of Ophelia”, “Wood”, “Actually Romantic”, and “Opalite”, “The Life of a Showgirl” consists of 12 new songs. Swift’s title track, “The Life of a Showgirl” also features Sabrina Carpenter, which many listeners speculated ever since the release of “The Tortured Poets Department”.

Swift’s song “The Fate of Ophelia” even has a popular TikTok dance associated with it based on the music video. The dance plays to the lyrics “Keep it one hundred on the land, the sea, the sky, pledge allegiance to your hand, your team, your vibes.” The dance features a series of motions and gestures mimicking waves and painting the sky.

Swift heavily influences people of all ages and in all places. Her music is mainstream, and constantly on the billboard top 100 or higher. Her influence is carefully watched worldwide, her example swaying children’s opinions and childhoods, creating trends for the present and future.

The sixth track on her album, “Ruin The Friendship”, shows themes of grief, loss, and regret. The song is speculated to be about Swift regretting not acting on her romantic feelings towards her friend, Jeff Lang, in high school. Lang tragically died in 2010, just one day after Swift released her third studio album, “Speak Now”. In “Ruin The Friendship”, a line says “Abigail called me with the bad news,” referring to Swift’s longtime childhood best friend Abigail Anderson.

Swift, Lang, and Anderson went to high school together, and the song talks about Anderson contacting Swift about Lang’s unfortunate and unexpected passing.

While chatter has arisen on Swift’s controversial album covers, her photoshoot also included more child friendly images for covers. While some photos show Swift in little clothing covered in gems, other photos feature her face surrounded in feathers and jewels, cropping her body completely out of the photo. Swift has been recently branching out more with her photography and public image, and this new album cover is a perfect representation of what the album represents- the life of a showgirl.

On her tracks, quite a few songs pay homage to popular individuals. The song “Father Figure” pays tribute to George Michael, wherein “Father Figure” shares the same title as Michael’s hit song. “The Fate of Ophelia” honors Shakespeare, referring to the character Ophelia from his 1603 masterpiece “Hamlet”.

This album is a great accomplishment through her almost 20 years of greatness, and possibly one of her best and most anticipated. “The Life of a Showgirl” was a musical masterpiece, and the inclusion of grief, hopeful, and love themes really show off Swift’s mastermind tendencies when writing.