Taylor Swift released The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore on Friday. It adds four new songs to last October's album: "Patient Zero," "Cleveland!," "Pink Clouding," and "Babylon." The original album sold more in its first week than any album since tracking began in 1991, and critics gave it mixed reviews. In August 2025, Swift told the New Heights podcast, "This is 12. There's not a 13th, there's not other ones coming." On Wednesday she announced the new songs anyway. She said she wrote them with her producers in Sweden and that they were "born out of pure gratitude" for the fans' response. "Cleveland!" is about her husband, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, whom she married in July. The "Patient Zero" video premieres at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday.

1. These Are the Best Songs of the Whole Showgirl Era

Critics at The Globe and Mail, USA Today, Variety, and The Irish Times praise the new tracks, and the Globe says they beat the original 12.

The four new songs beat the album Swift added them to. Globe and Mail critic Aisling Murphy writes that the tracks "are markedly better than the rest of Swift's record-shattering record." "It's hard not to wish that we'd had these songs this time last year," she adds. She says the original album "might have left more of an impact beyond its sales numbers" with "Patient Zero" on it.

All four songs deserve an ovation, one critic says. USA Today music writer Melissa Ruggieri writes that the songs "deserve an ovation." She calls "Cleveland!" "the catchiest among the new songs" and says Swift "reverses the mirror with obvious self-awareness, and then tells you how much she doesn't care what you think."

A short, quick release is a relief after the giant albums. Variety chief music critic Chris Willman says "it's refreshing to get something fast and easily digestible from her." He calls "Cleveland!" "just effing goofy" but "sweet." "Pink Clouding," he says, sounds like it "could have been on 'Lover'" and shows nothing has "knocked the shockingly tender poetry out of her."

The awkward newlywed lines are there on purpose, this camp says. Irish Times critic Ed Power calls "Cleveland!" "full of newly-wed cringe" but says "you have to admire the tune for sticking it to the haters." He calls the last two songs "superb."

2. The Songs Are Recycled and Safe Because She No Longer Has to Take Risks

Critics at The Telegraph, The Independent, and Slate say the songs repeat older, better work, and a fan creator says the release was a mistake.

The new songs are as flat as the original, this critic says. Telegraph culture writer Poppie Platt calls herself a lifelong Swiftie. She panned the release under the headline "I'm a Swiftie and even I think these new songs are terrible." The songs "are just as derivative and flat as those that populated the original," she writes. She says why: "She no longer has the incentive to take creative risks. No producer or record label boss would dare offer a critical opinion."

The Kelce songs are about public image, this critic argues. "It's striking that the love songs Swift writes for Kelce are rooted in public perception rather than her inner feelings; she cares more about how the world sees them together than how she sees him," she writes.

The writing sounds borrowed from her own back catalog. Independent music editor Roisin O'Connor gave it two stars. She says the songwriting "feels regurgitated" and that "Cleveland!" has "some of her worst writing." "Where is Swift, artistically, now? Because it sounds like she's flailing," she writes.

The husband songs keep failing, and she should stop reading the comments. Slate music critic Carl Wilson writes that "Cleveland!" is "consistent with all her big love songs about Travis Kelce so far, it sucks." He begs her to "please, please, please stop reading the comments," and writes: "Maybe we've gotten all the growth from Swift we'll ever get."

Some fans wanted nothing at all. Content creator Zachary Hourihane, who posts as "theswiftologist," captioned a video quoted by CNN: "The Encore was a bad idea." Other fans called the album "her weakest work" and asked, "Does she know it's ok to keep songs in the vault?"

3. She's Happy, and the Haters Are the Whole Point of the Song

Swift and her fan defenders say the songs came from gratitude, and that "Cleveland!" answers the critics on purpose.

The songs exist because the fans broke a record, Swift says. In her announcement, she wrote that fans "gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history," so she went to Sweden to celebrate with her producers. "There was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs," she wrote.

The song quotes the insults and dares people to hate it. "Cleveland!" opens with Swift quoting insults about her looks and dancing, then answers: "He already took me to Cleveland / And showed me The Heights, so hate all you like." Swift said last October on Apple Music's Zane Lowe Show: "I'm not the art police. It's like, everybody is allowed to feel exactly how they want."

Fans say the critics don't know how to have fun. Olivia Levin, who runs the Swiftiesforeternity Instagram account, posted: "you're probably gonna see a lot of hate on Taylor's new songs. And you know what? It's nothing we haven't been through before... Just ignore them. They don't know how to have fun." Ryan and Molly, hosts of the HitsDifferently YouTube channel, said: "I can already see the hater for these lyrics, and that's fine. Y'all don't have to get it."

Some fans who didn't expect to like the Ohio song now do. Fan Alex Goldschmidt posted: "Never expected to obsess over a Taylor Swift song about a city in Ohio but Cleveland! is just that good." Another fan, Paige, wrote: "Happy to report that all four songs are even better this morning than they were on the first listen last night."

Where This Lands

Murphy, Ruggieri, Willman, and Power praise the four new songs, and Murphy says they beat the original album. Platt, O'Connor, and Wilson say they're recycled, and Platt says Swift's sales have removed any pressure to do better. Swift says the songs came from gratitude, and her fan defenders say "Cleveland!" answers exactly this kind of backlash on purpose. Fans are arguing song by song, and "Cleveland!" is getting most of the hate. Next up is the "Patient Zero" video, which premieres Sunday at the VMAs. Swift also picks up the show's first Artist Director Honors that night. The first-week chart numbers come after that, and Platt already predicts the album "will immediately rush to the top of the charts" regardless.

Sources