Taylor Swift has dropped the year’s biggest album with The Life of a Showgirl . It’s also the year’s most polarizing album — but how would it not be? Something about Taylor will always trigger those over-the-top love-or-hate reactions from people. “I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness,” she sings halfway through the album — I love this line because it’s either the best or worst moment on the album, depending on your personal Swiftian chemistry. That’s the showgirl in her.

And make no mistake — that’s how she wants it. As she says in her release-party documentary, “In my industry, attention is affection.” That’s the showgirl’s life, and it really is the only one she knows.

Taylor’s always been obsessed with that life, ever since she was a kid. She was still an ingenue when

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