In last year’s sweetly devastating Las Vegas melodrama The Last Showgirl , Pamela Anderson’s middle-aged dancer Shelly is on an audition for the first time in decades. Her long-standing gig, the classic revue Le Razzle Dazzle, is shutting down. She allows that many people would consider her too old for this prospective new part (while still lying about her age). But it’s a huge theater, she jokes: “Distance helps!”

This year’s The Life of a Showgirl marks the first time I might also say “distance helps” about a Taylor Swift album. It’s not that Swift at 35 has by any means aged out of her own role of World’s Biggest Pop Star—if anything she’s still acting too young. No, I mean that this record, her first reunion with Swedish mega-producers Max Martin and Shellback since 2017’s R

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