Who is Taylor Swift’s heir apparent? Her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” offers an answer. It’s Taylor Swift.

Her last album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” ended with the cautionary “Clara Bow,” an allegory that seemed to suggest her tenure atop the cultural mainstream was inherited from stars of the past, like the namechecked Stevie Nicks — and that a new generation of younger, elastic female pop performers could soon take her place. In 2025, there are many to choose from: Consider Chappell Roan’s full-throated theatrics, Olivia Rodrigo’s fiery punk-pop feminism, Sabrina Carpenter’s cheeky sexuality. In the knotty themes of Friday’s “The Life of a Showgirl,” best illustrated in the title track, Swift asserts that the baton hasn’t been passed, but rather shared. Because she isn’t

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