Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Is ACTUALLY Good. But Is It Romantic?

“The Life of a Showgirl,” Taylor Swift’s 12th original studio album, is out now and finds the superstar taking stock of her relationship with fiancé Travis Kelce, while also tending to some unfinished business with unnamed enemies. Jon Caramanica, a critic at The Times, and Joe Coscarelli, a culture reporter — both longtime Swiftologists — sat down to dissect the 12 new songs, including who they might be about and why Swift’s music lends itself such detective work in the first place. Check out the guys’ personal rankings of Taylor’s best albums here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t7C_NIkDPk 0:14 Intro 2:28 Max Martin and Shellback 9:28 Initial takeaways 15:08 “The Fate of Ophelia”/”Elizabeth Taylor” 24:06 “Opalite” 28:58 “Father Figure” 32:59 “Eldest Daughter” 40:10 “Actually Romantic,” Charli XCX & Olivia Rodrigo 48:49 Giggling over “Wood” 54:34 Snack Time! + “Cancelled”/“Honey”/”The Life of a Showgirl” Follow Jon: https://twitter.com/joncaramanica https://www.instagram.com/joncaramanica Follow Joe: https://twitter.com/joecoscarelli https://www.instagram.com/joecoscarelli/ Listen to every Popcast ever https://www.nytimes.com/popcast Every episode of Popcast (Deluxe) on YouTube https://tinyurl.com/PopcastDeluxe Popcast Discord! https://tinyurl.com/PopcastDiscord Popcast Facebook! https://tinyurl.com/PopcastFacebook Popcast t-shirts & stickers http://itsthepopcast.myshopify.com Subscribe: http://bit.ly/U8Ys7n More from The New York Times Video: http://nytimes.com/video