Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore branded 'derivative and flat' in early reviews… as critics call out 'three dud tracks'

Taylor Swift's four new songs for The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore has left the critics sharply polarized in an early round of reviews.

Swift, 36, put out the original version of The Life of a Showgirl last October, a few weeks after going public with her engagement to Travis Kelce.

This week, in the wake of their Madison Square Garden wedding in July, she announced the arrival of a deluxe edition with the single Patient Zero, as well as three additional numbers called Cleveland!, Pink Clouding and Babylon.

The songs dropped Thursday night to groans from some reviewers, one of whom said she had released 'one diamond and three duds,' via the Independent. 

'I’m a Swiftie and even I think these new songs are terrible,' ran the headline of a piece excoriating Swift's latest efforts as 'derivative and flat,' in the Telegraph.

Cleveland!, an ode to Kelce named after his hometown, was dismissed as 'appalling' 'dogs***' that had been 'sung with such oozing self-satisfaction it’s like being repeatedly poked and asked if it hurts,' in a review from the Guardian.

The Daily Mail has contacted a representative for Swift for comment.

The Life of a Showgirl enjoyed the biggest American opening week in history, prompting Swift and her producers Max Martin and Shellback to take a celebratory trip to the two men's native Sweden, where they wrote the new songs.

Patient Zero has now rocketed to the number two position on the US iTunes chart, but has yet to dethrone Choosin' Texas by country music wunderkind Ella Langley.

The self-described 'Swiftie' who wrote the Telegraph review made note of the fact that the original album was 'derided by many of her own fans,' and theorized Swift was attempting to 'win those same fans back' with the fresh release.

'What she doesn’t seem to have realized is that the music must be good to do so – and the songs on The Life of a Showgirl: Encore Edition are just as derivative and flat as those that populated the original,' the critic observed.

'It’s a crying shame. Modern pop’s greatest voice risks rubbishing her own legacy because she’s scared to take a day off,' the review concluded. 

In the Independent, Swift was accused of including 'some of her worst writing' on Cleveland!, a song about how she had found in Kelce the 'one person in this entire world' who did not regard her as 'completely insufferable.'

By contrast to his love of her, she rattles off a litany of fan gripes, including that she was 'never a girl’s girl' and lacks dancing talent or dress sense.

The critic poured particular scorn on the lines: 'The taste of me is acquired, but it’s his favorite dish. He says I look like an angel, they say: "I hate that b****."'

Patient Zero was characterized as 'regurgitated' material with a tone that 'borders on smug,' while Pink Clouding was taken to task for its 'dull beats' and a lyric that contents itself with listing colors 'in lieu of conjuring any truly evocative imagery.'

According to that review, the 'diamond' in the rough was Babylon, a song about a man's nostalgia for the small town he left behind and a work the critic called 'such an improvement on the other three songs it feels like a relief.'

That review expressed the wish Swift would 'turn her observational gifts to something more than old boyfriends, not least when this is only producing duds. Where is Swift, artistically, now? Because it sounds like she’s flailing.'

In the Guardian, Patient Zero and Pink Clouding were named as the only new songs that 'contain a palpable sense of humanity' at all.

Even the praise came with a knife-twist: 'The beauty of Pink Clouding is that it sounds genuinely believable, a quality curiously missing from Swift’s songs about Kelce.' 

Cleveland! was slated for portraying her current relationship 'as a triumph over venal and conniving haters,' a perspective the critic considered 'a very strange lens through which to write about supposed true love' with the man she married.

Overall, the review drew the conclusion that 'the more Swift releases, the weaker her output gets. It doesn’t take any detective work to deduce that the healthiest thing for her creativity would be to let the curtain fall for a while.'

The new songs did receive a rave from Variety, whose critic called Cleveland! a 'charmer' and promised 'Swifties' would experience 'euphoria' from Pink Clouding.

On the subject of Patient Zero, which sees the pop star offering barbed advice to an ex-boyfriend's current girlfriend, the review effervesced that 'we love a T-Swift who forgives - maybe - but never, ever forgets.'

Babylon was hailed for its 'suggestive and resonant' sound and 'superior lines' like: 'You ran with all the wild things, a liberated libertine who longed for home.'

A music video for Patient Zero, starring Taylor Swift alongside Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell, will air Sunday during the MTV Video Music Awards.