Taylor Swift shows and tells in ‘Life of a Showgirl’

By Sandra Gonzalez, CNN

(CNN) — Taylor Alison Swift, noted numerologist and superstar performer, has taken a break from sourdough to bake up a new album, out now.

“The Life of a Showgirl” – Swift’s 12th album, announced at 12:12 a.m. on August 12 – reunites her with Shellback and Swedish hitmaker Max Martin, the producer who told the Backstreet Boys what way they wanted it and helped Kelly Clarkson explain what she’d been up to since U been gone. The pair is also behind Swift hits “Bad Blood” and “Shake it Off.”

The album’s 12 tracks – a mix of breezy pop and literary ballads – have a runtime of about 42 minutes – brief by Swift’s recent standards. That is, of course, assuming she doesn’t pull a “Tortured Poets Department” part two and surprise everyone with another double album mere hours later. Would the Internet survive? We’re not sure.

Swift described her new music as all “bangers” during her appearance on fiancé Travis Kelce’s podcast “New Heights,” explaining that “The Life of a Showgirl” is “the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time” and about “everything that was going on behind the curtain” during her monster Eras Tour.

She added that her goal for the new album was to have “melodies that were so infectious that you’re almost angry at it.”

And infectious they are, but angry? No, ma’am. Here’s a brief tour of your new hyperfixation musical meal.

Max Martin and Shellback deliver again

The album kicks off with “The Fate of Ophelia,” an uber catchy tune that references Shakespeare and sees our English teacher in fine lyrical form. But hard at work here are Martin and Shellback, who create a tablescape for the musical main course that would make Martha Stewart fume with envy.

That is what they do, of course. So seemingly effortlessly that it’s easy to forget how hard – and, for many, impossible – it is to make a hit. Much less as many as they collectively have.

Swift, Martin and Shellback co-wrote and produced all 12 tracks on “The Life of a Showgirl,” an album that tells a story that is concise and clear from boppin’ beginning to the showgirl’s final bow in the album’s title track, featuring Sabrina Carpenter.

Inside a new beginning with a certain tight end

You don’t have to listen too closely to hear the influence of Swift’s romance with Kelce on the album.

In fact, the prudes among us might need hand fans.

The “explicit” labels on “Wood” and “Honey” do heavy lifting in warning parents that these two tracks might have some not-so-hidden references to adult romantic relationships and, if not carefully monitored, there might be some ‘splaining to do.

For the rest of us, pull up a chair.

“Wood,” in particular, is something of an Alpha male’s version of a sonnet. With lyrics like “his lovе was the key that opened my thighs” and a mention of “new heights of manhood,” subtlety was not the goal here.

Touchdown, Kelce?

A final glimpse at the full track list

Happy Easter Egg hunting, Swifties. It’s going to be a long weekend.

• “The Fate of Ophelia”
• “Elizabeth Taylor”
• “Opalite”
• “Father Figure”
• “Eldest Daughter”
• “Ruin The Friendship”
• “Actually Romantic”
• “Wi$h Li$t”
• “Wood”
• “CANCELLED!”
• “Honey”
• “The Life of a Showgirl” (Feat. Sabrina Carpenter)

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