Taylor Swift has all the neuroticism of the deeply self-disciplined. Like Michael Jordan, she dominates her peers, charms when she wants to charm, and mostly hides 1 the kind of competitive streak that nice people swerve to avoid. Her greatest gifts are her self- and social awarenesses — knowing which parts of her rare personality almost everyone can relate to.

But Swift also clearly needs the studio, in a way that few people who reached this level of fame have ever needed anything you can legally acquire. Still only 35-years-old, The Life of a Showgirl is her 12th studio album and the fifth in a five-year-span. Post- engagement , post- record-setting tour, and with no plans to tour again any time soon, The Life of a Showgirl unfolds like a breathless vent to a friend

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