“It seems like all I ever do is change”, Taylor Swift writes in the prologue to the bestselling album 1989 (Taylor’s Version), released in 2014. In fact, change is a core part of the Swift marketing machine, which revolves around the evolution of her “eras”.
Since the release of her debut album in 2006, Swift has transformed from a ringleted country ingenue to a slick city dweller to (for her latest album cycle) a sequin-clad showgirl. That cycle has just been extended with the arrival of The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, featuring four new bonus tracks, including the single Patient Zero.
