There is a line that tends to get trotted out whenever some big-budget, high-profile piece of IP flops hard. “I made this for the fans, not the critics,” they’ll huff, conveniently dividing the lovers, who’ll eat up anything they’re given, from the haters, who want only to complain.

I doubt if Taylor Swift , an artist who reacted to Reputation ’s Grammys underperformance with a firm “I just need to make a better record,” has ever earnestly tried to float this excuse. To the contrary: Her new album , the short, upbeat, Max Martin-produced The Life of a Showgirl , feels almost as much like a reaction to complaints about 2024’s The Tortured Poets Society being too long or too mopey or too Jack Antonoff-y as it does a spontaneous outpouring of love for arena tours or Travis Kelc

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