Love it or hate it, your favorite pop star is a person and a product. How much are you willing to pay? Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, smashed records for first week album sales. This was in part due to all the different limited-edition variants that went on sale; some for only 24 hours. Talk about pressuring your fans! Is this business strategy fan service, or fan exploitation? Where’s the line? Brittany sits down with <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/5244882/stephen-thompson"target="_blank" >Stephen Thompson</a>, host for NPR Music and Pop Culture Happy Hour, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/140955737/ann-powers"target="_blank" >Ann Powers</a>, NPR music critic and correspondent, to get into the life of a business woman, why they think Swift had to make this album, and whether or not it's worth the cost. Read Ann's (mostly positive) <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/03/nx-s1-5558007/taylor-swift-the-life-of-a-showgirl-review"target="_blank" >review of The Life of a Showgirl</a>. (0:00) Is Taylor exploiting her fans? Yes and No!(3:08) Taylor's business strategy isn't hers alone...(6:11) Why Taylor is a proxy for all our rage(10:43) Why vinyl sales in general have skyrocketed(13:46) How the charts impact the music industry (15:50) Why Taylor Swift HAD to make 'The Life of a Showgirl'(18:15) Does greed make bad art?(21:00) Responding to your comments :) Follow Brittany Luse on Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bmluse/?hl=en"target="_blank" >@bmluse</a> For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR’s Pod Club newsletter at <a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pod-club"target="_blank" >npr.org/podclub</a>. Learn more about sponsor message choices: <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>

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