Pitchfork Review Criticised as Fans Say 'BRAT' Has More Variants Than Taylor Swift's Recent Album

Pitchfork recently released its 101 Things That Happened in 2025, Ranked on the Pitchfork Scale, giving Taylor Swift's 'The Life of a Showgirl' album a score of 4.5. While it is not unusual for Pitchfork to criticise a Swift album, fans highlighted a misleading description stating: 'More variants of The Life of a Showgirl than COVID'.

Comments in a subreddit discussion agreed with Pitchfork's review, calling the album a 'flop' and mocking the fact that it released multiple variants to surpass Adele's '25', which debuted with 3.3 million sales, with Swift's 3.48 million. However, fans say Pitchfork overlooked one thing: 'BRAT' still has more variants than the album

Pitchfork's Year-End Review for 'Showgirl' Slammed

At one point, a post claiming that the review constituted 'bullying and harassment' went viral. In the same post, fans wrote: 'They've done this before. And I'm afraid the reason they're comfortable doing it is because Swifties give them engagement on top of all the haters'.

Others suggested that Pitchfork risks losing credibility in the Metacritic ratings, calling their reviews 'impartial and petty'. The discussion also criticised the outlet for 'ragebaiting' Swifties for profit 'every two weeks'.

Prior to this review, Pitchfork had published a series of posts reviewing top albums with minimal engagement. But upon mentioning Swift negatively, likes and article views reportedly soared to thousands. Reactions to the review were ultimately divided.

Casual social media users who did not enjoy the album argued that it is not 'bullying' to critique a record they perceive as 'bad'. Some critics defended Pitchfork, noting that Swift frequently releases multiple album variants and calling the artist 'greedy'.

Other commentators pointed out that there are people who simply do not like her music, and Pitchfork's controversial review is unlikely to harm Swift's billion-dollar empire. 'Y'all be saying anything instead of just accepting that people don't like her music. She's a billionaire pop star; she's allowed to be critiqued for trying to monopolise the music industry with the multiple variants-for-one-album gimmick,' one commenter wrote.

'Showgirl' Variants: Are There Actually a Lot?

Billboard has rewritten its rules when it comes to releasing variants to make sure top music artists won't be able to manipulate the charts. As of March 2025, these rules now require physical albums to have minimum prices and should only have four tracklist-different variants. But the new rules had been applied before Swift's 'Showgirl' album.

The most recent Billboard update is that streaming will have more weighted record for sales, which Swift already dominates. Swift's record-breaking album was able to abide by Billboard's new rules with its variants.

Meanwhile, another X post revealed that Pitchfork's favourite album, 'BRAT' by Charli XCX, released more variants than Swift's.

Fans argued that Swift was only responding to demands, however, not all are convinced since 'BRAT' was released a year ago. For them, timing is a major point of contention. 'Brat is a year and a half old, whilst showgirl is only a couple months old'.

Between the back-and-forth, others were concerned on how much artists release variants. Some commented, 'Why the f**k does a song need more than 5 versions of itself?' and 'Both have too many versions what's your point'.

But, perhaps, the most underrated part of the discussion is that music variants is always linked to female artists. Male artists, like The Weeknd, also release several album variants, although the difference is that Swift's releases immediately boost her chart sales.