The Life Of A Showgirl＜Portofino Orange Glitter Vinyl＞

全米アルバム・チャート通算17週1位を獲得した前作『ザ・トーチャード・ポエッツ・デパートメント』に続く、通算12枚目のスタジオ・アルバム

このアルバムは、ツアー中にテイラー・スウィフトの内面で起こっていたことについて書かれた作品。活気に満ちていて、電気みたいにビリビリしていて、鮮やかだった時期。人生で最も楽しくて、ワイルドで、ドラマチックな時期に生まれた作品。
タイトル曲「ザ・ライフ・オブ・ア・ショウガール」には、サブリナ・カーペンターがゲスト参加!
マックス・マーティンとシェルバックとの共同プロデュース。

●PORTOFINO ORANGE GLITTER VINYL
製造工程の特性上、レコード盤の色味には個体差が生じる場合があります。

(C) 2025 Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift(R)Used By Permission.
All Rights Reserved.

One of the biggest pop stars in the world should know a thing or two about the travails of show biz. That’s the loose concept behind The Life of a Showgirl, the 12th album from record-breaking, zeitgeist-defining entertainer and global success story Taylor Swift, comprising songs that touch on what life is like at that level of fame, but that ultimately come across as reflections on maturation delivered from the perspective of someone who’s grown up in the public eye. There’s a glamorous tension to opener “The Fate of Ophelia,” a dynamic and slow-burning dance-pop track, and the enormous choruses and cinematic melodrama of “Elizabeth Taylor” serve the album’s theme of exploring fame in all its glory and darkness. Compared to 2024’s voluminous The Tortured Poets Department, these 12 songs feel sharp and concise. Instead of working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner as she had for many of her prior albums, Swift reunited with Max Martin and Shellback for TLoaS, the Swedish producers who helped craft some of her most successful songs. There’s some of that familiar production magic in the instantaneous disco-pop hooks of “Wood” or the classic Swiftie melodic sensibilities and sonic detailing of “Opalite,” but nothing comes close to the poreless candyshell immediacy of “Bad Blood” or the undeniable catchiness of “We Are Never Getting Back Together.” Instead, these songs choose a more refined approach that’s slower to take hold but makes an impact nonetheless. The tempos are relaxed and the energy is restrained, even on the starry-eyed title track, in which Swift enlists Sabrina Carpenter to sing along on a soundtrack-ready narrative about the price of success. “Actually Romantic” is an indirect but thinly veiled retort to Charli xcx’s Brat track “Sympathy Is a Knife,” which many deduced had some lines about Swift. While "Actually Romantic" gets in some smirking jabs over a guitar-led chord progression borrowed from a Pixies song, it lacks the vulnerability that made “Sympathy Is a Knife” such a stunning and honest exploration of insecurity. It’s also one of several instances on TLoaS where Swift’s lyrics aim for more adult themes but come off a little bizarre. There are sexual innuendos throughout the album that feel awkward and confused, especially for a star with so many preteens and children in her fan base. Swift reaches for a more grown-up reading of her identity here, with themes of commitment, devotion, and a greater embrace of explicitly sexual references than we’ve seen from her before on songs about her upcoming marriage, while the emotionally unshielded “Ruin the Friendship” explores the grief and regret connected to the death of a high school friend. In the end, however, The Life of a Showgirl isn’t quite an expose on the perils of the music industry, nor Swift’s emergence into maturity, but some slightly weird and scattered attempt at both, all from the perspective of someone who’s spent her formative years on a stage and feels these life changes in ways not many of her fans will be able to relate to. ~ Fred Thomas

自身最大のポップ作『1989』(2014年)を手掛けたマックス・マーティン&シェルバックと再タッグを組み、〈ショーガール〉としての人生の表裏をテーマに、落ち着いたミッドテンポのキャッチーすぎないポップスを中心に構成された新作。メロディーメイクの上手さが光るリード曲"The Fate Of Ophelia"、キャンセル・カルチャーに物申した"CANCELLED!"、サブリナ・カーペンターを迎えた表題曲など話題ネタも満載。フィアンセに対する感謝の気持ちや、驚きの性的描写なども交えつつ、結婚間近な女性としての穏やかなムードに包まれている。とはいえ、ロマンス小説を思わせる乙女心も健在だ。
bounce (C)村上ひさし