As Taylor Swift’s latest release, The Life of a Showgirl, marks one week since its debut, we’ve asked some of our favorite music historians and cultural critics to weigh in on the album’s impact and potential historical significance. Their responses, emailed to me, were rich and varied.
Dr. Ken Womack, Professor of English and Popular Music here at Monmouth University and the author of (among many other things) Bruce Songs: The Music of Bruce Springsteen, Album-by-Album, Song-by-Song, notes:
“As a long-player, The Life of a Showgirl has already racked up several impressive bona fides: the most sales on an album’s first day of release with 2.7 million copies, as well as the most streamed album in a single day. These numbers alone push The Life of a Showgirl into very rare air, indeed. But in terms of our own Center for American Music, the album is a smorgasbord of styles and essences. The Life of a Showgirl has it all: synth-pop (‘The Fate of Ophelia’), rock (‘Opalite’), alternative (‘Actually Romantic’), country (‘The Life of a Showgirl’), even 70s-style funk (‘Wood’). It’s truly a feast for the ears, as well as a compelling walk down popular music’s memory lane.”
While I was too busy dancing the first 17 times I personally listened to the album to think quite as critically as Ken has, I have to agree with him: The Life of a Showgirl blends synth-pop, rock, country, and funk—and there’s nothing we love more here at the Center than celebrating the full spectrum of American music!
Alan Light, author, music journalist, and former Editor-in-Chief of Vibe and Spin magazines, recognized the album’s statistical milestones, as Ken did, observing:
“The seismic impact was entirely predictable—Showgirl sold 2.7 million copies, the second-highest one-week total in history. It became the year’s biggest-selling album on its first day and broke records by reaching number one in one hundred countries in less than eight hours. The first single and opening track, the ambitious Hamlet-meets-Fleetwood Mac “The Fate of Ophelia,” was Spotify’s biggest debut of all time, and the record’s accompanying film The Official Release Party of a Showgirl (self-distributed by Swift to movie theaters nationwide) dominated the weekend box office, taking in $33 million. Twelve albums and 19 years into a career that only gets bigger, she’s in territory no pop star has ever seen, and realistically her new music can be assessed only next to her own work.”
Whether you’re a Swiftie or not—the stats are the stats! See Alan’s full take here; excerpted with permission. As an aside, don’t forget to register for our free, virtual “Conversations with our Curator” session with Alan on November 10! We’ll be chatting about his brand-new book Don’t Stop: Why We (Still) Love Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.
Dr. Hettie Williams, who teaches history and gender studies here at Monmouth University, notes, “Taylor Swift has released a new album that has of course risen to the top of the charts but I suspect her lasting legacy has less to do with her vocal abilities and more to do with her contributions to cultural feminism including the positive impact she has had on the self-esteem of young women around the globe.”
This, for me, is a particularly thoughtful take—Dr. Williams’s musings suggest that Swift is not just a pop star, but a transformative figure in contemporary culture. I encourage our readers to consider both whether they agree with that, and which pop stars, if any, you feel have had similar impacts.
Dr. David Hamilton Golland, Dean and Professor of History here in Monmouth University’s Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences and author of Livin’ Just to Find Emotion: Journey and the Story of American Rock, suggests that the album’s successes in the area Dr. Williams highlighted are particularly timely, observing:
“With The Life of a Showgirl, Swift continues to explore issues of gender and feminism as she matures into a new, and potentially more mature, phase of her career. This is especially important in our current revanchist era, when the political class is openly questioning long-held feminist shibboleths.”
Now, we didn’t just cherry-pick glowing praise. Jim Cullen, author of Born in the USA: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition, had a slightly more nuanced take:
“I have tremendous regard for Swift’s prodigious talent, which places her in the same league as Elvis or the Beatles, even if she lacks their transcendent talent (she, like Springsteen, is more of an inheritor than an inventor). But I’m getting a little tired of her penchant for score-settling, and do not find accounts of her sexual exploits, however clever (“Wood”), all that compelling. I’ve been impatient for a while now for Swift to fully put her often beautifully chronicled adolescence behind her and make a decisive, mature album like Frank Sinatra—Midnights, which evoked Sinatra’s classic 1955 In the Wee Small Hours, seemed like a gesture in that direction. But of course, I’m not her primary constituency.”
Fair enough! See Jim’s full take here; excerpted with permission.
Laura Flam, who co-authored But Will You Love Me Tomorrow: An Oral History of the 60s Girl Groups with Emily Sieu Liebowitz, had some very particular and interesting comments:
“Taylor Swift’s fight for control over her catalog, and the awareness she has raised about artists’ ownership and control over profits from their work, is endlessly impressive. I find it especially satisfying to see a female artist harness her power and influence to bring these issues into the mainstream – a subject that is very dear to me, as I am the co-author of a book about the first female pop stars — the singers of the Girl Groups of the ‘60s.
It would be good to see Swift push the conversation further. In ‘Opalite’ on her The Life of a Showgirl album she makes a vocal nod to the Ronettes’ song ‘Be My Baby,” as well as a connection to their likeness and style in her ‘Ophelia’ video. The women in the Ronettes and other Girl Groups were some of the first artists to fight losing battles over ownership and rights. The lessons they learned and the stories they told acted as cautionary tales for artists who came after them. I wish there was a way for the Ronettes and their descendants to monetize their presence on such a widely talked about album by such an influential artist. Much of their value and many of their contributions, such as Ronnie Spector’s tough and raw vibrato, and the group’s totally unique and often duplicated style, are intangible. But they did not write their own songs and they don’t collect songwriting royalties.
As an artist who does write her own music and has fought so hard to control and monetize her own publishing and legacy, Taylor Swift shines a perfect light on the disparity of these situations. Ms. Swift was TIME magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year. Her last tour grossed over a billion dollars. This week Swift’s references to the Ronettes are being described in the media as ‘Easter eggs.’ But they are something more than that. They’re direct references to the three female artists whose creative choices built The Ronettes: Ronnie Spector, Estelle Bennett and Nedra Talley.
Taylor Swift is often described as a ‘girls girl,’ and we are just at the beginning of her Showgirl era. It remains to be seen where she will take things. I hope she will use her platform to mention these artists by name instead so they are recognized, not relegated to namelessness or ‘Easter eggs.’ It’s what a girl’s girl should do.”
This issue of the business of music is certainly an important one, which we will explore in the exhibits in our new building when it opens in the spring of 2026.
I’d like to close with comments from curator and cultural historian Nwaka Onwusa, who is especially familiar with Swift’s body of work. She shared:
“Taylor Swift’s career has always struck me as an ongoing exhibition — one that continues to evolve in real time. I can say that with some intimacy, having curated The Taylor Swift Experience following the release of her 1989 album — her first major step into pop. That exhibition traveled successfully across the U.S., and I still remember the moment we were de-installing a Ringo Starr exhibit to make room for Taylor’s. At first, I’ll admit I questioned whether she carried the same kind of ‘gravitas,’ but that experience taught me something essential: gravitas is not bound by age.
Working closely with her collection and discography revealed a young artist deeply intentional about authorship and image — a storyteller building her own archive as she lives it. What makes Taylor historically significant is not just what she’s done for the music industry, but what she’s done to it. Through bold choices around ownership, re-recording, and narrative control, she has shifted how artists think about power, agency, and longevity. It’s not merely the life of a showgirl on stage — it’s the life of a woman fully in command behind the scenes, shaping her legacy with creative and business acumen. That, to me, is historically significant and profoundly empowering! What’s historically significant is being CONSISTENT.”
We hope you enjoyed hearing from some of the wonderful scholars who support our work here at the Center. Of course, historical significance can only truly be measured with the passage of time. As years go by, perspective deepens—allowing us to see what genuinely changed culture, society, or thought. Having just wrapped our Born to Run 50th anniversary events, I must wonder—will we be celebrating The Life of a Showgirl’s 50th? We’ll circle back in 2075!
Melissa Ziobro
Director of Curatorial Affairs
Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music
Monmouth University
October 10, 2025
