Taylor Swift breaks streaming records with new Showgirl album

NEW YORK – American singer Taylor Swift on Oct 3 quickly set a streaming record with The Life Of A Showgirl, her new album of bouncy pop songs about love, sex, success – and score-settling – that had fans analysing every word.

Critical opinion of Showgirl ranged from glowing to unimpressed, but fans flocked to Spotify to hear the 12 tracks, breaking streaming records on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, the services said.

Swift reunited with Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback for her 12th studio album, and their influence is clear in the driving beats and catchy hooks.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right,” the 35-year-old artiste posted on Instagram.

On Spotify and Apple Music, the album became the most-streamed in one day in 2025, and on Amazon Music it broke an all-time record – surpassing a previous Swift album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024).

Lead single The Fate Of Ophelia also broke a first-day streaming record for 2025 on Apple Music and in Spotify history, the platforms said in statements online.

While the album still features plenty of introspection, it reveals a lighter, joyful Swift – in love with her National Football League Super Bowl champion fiance Travis Kelce, happy to have bought back her music catalogue and proud of her record-shattering Eras Tour.

“I just want you, have a couple kids, got the whole block looking like you... Got me dreaming about a driveway with a basketball hoop,” she sings on the dreamy Wish List.

On Opalite, which Kelce has said is his favourite track, she says, “You were dancing through the lightning strikes / Sleepless in the onyx night / But now the sky is opalite.”

“I used to have this dark fear that if I ever were truly, like, happy and... nurtured by a relationship – what happens if the writing just dries up?” Swift told BBC Radio 1. “And it turns out that’s not the case at all.”

Elated fans worldwide snapped up tickets to special “release party” screenings in movie theatres – including the premiere of the video for lead single The Fate Of Ophelia.

In Melbourne, Swifties – many dressed in orange, the artiste’s signature colour for the album – were among the first to dance and sing to Showgirl.

“I love the album,” Ms Kerry Brookes, a 54-year-old British information technology manager attending a screening in the suburbs of Washington, told AFP.

“I’m just interested to see what she has to say about it,” she said, wearing a showgirl headpiece and a feather boa.

‘Only as hot as your last hit’

Showgirl represents a shift from the folksy pandemic-era Folklore and Evermore in 2020, the pensive Midnights in 2022 and the introspective Tortured Poets in 2024.

Swift said ahead of the release that the new album “comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life”.

Some of that drama comes through on Elizabeth Taylor, on which she sings: “You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby”.

Then she goes for the jugular on Father Figure, a reinvention of late pop crooner George Michael’s hit of the same name in which she skewers power dynamics in the music business.

She could be singling out Big Machine Records founder Scott Borchetta, who discovered Swift when she was a teen, and Mr Scooter Braun, who bought the label and took control of the master recordings of her first six albums.

“You want a fight, you found it / I’ve got the place surrounded / You’ll be sleeping with the fishes before you know you’re drowning,” she sings.

Fans are also musing that Actually Romantic is a diss track referring to a rumoured feud with British pop singer Charli XCX.

Special editions of Showgirl are for sale at retail giant Target, including the “Portofino orange glitter vinyl” or the “summertime spritz pink shimmer vinyl”.

Aside from the Ophelia video, the weekend screenings feature behind-the-scenes footage and lyric videos.

The one-off cinematic event is estimated to gross US$30 million (S$38 million) to US$50 million, according to film industry website Deadline.

“And now I know the life of a showgirl, babe,” Swift sings in the title track featuring American pop princess Sabrina Carpenter, who opened for her at some Eras Tour stops. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” AFP