Taylor Swift said people who are talking about her new album, positively or negatively, are helping her.
In an interview with Apple Music, released on Tuesday, host Zane Lowe asked Swift how she was absorbing the reactions to her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” which was released on Friday.
The album, co-produced by Max Martin and Karl “Shellback” Schuster, became the platform’s most-streamed album in a single day in 2025, per Spotify.
However, the album has also received a fair share of criticism from her fans, with Swifties posting on social media that the lyricism in the new album does not match that of her older releases.
“I welcome the chaos,” Swift replied to Lowe in the interview.
“The rule of show business is, if it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping,” she said.
“I have a lot of respect for people’s subjective opinions on art. I’m not the art police,” she added. “It’s like, everybody is allowed to feel exactly how they want.”
Swift said that she had her legacy in mind when releasing new music.
“We’re doing this thing for keeps,” she said. “Like, I have such an eye on legacy when I’m making my music.”
“I know what I made. I know I adore it,” she added.
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Speaking about how the songs in “The Life of a Showgirl” don’t fall into the “sad” and “cathartic” song category she’s known for, she said she was proud of the melodies and lyrics in the new album.
“The Life of a Showgirl” is available in over two dozen configurations. Per a Billboard report, the album was sold in at least 27 different physical forms, including CDs, vinyls, and cassettes.
Billboard, citing reports from data tracking firm Luminate, reported on Tuesday that 3.2 million equivalent album units were sold in the US since the album’s launch.
The album’s release comes shortly after she announced her engagement to NFL player Travis Kelce, her boyfriend of two years.
“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” she wrote in the caption of their joint Instagram post in August. As of press time, the post had 37 million likes.
A representative for Swift did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
