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By Dawn Chmielewski LOS ANGELES, October 3 (Reuters) -Superstar Taylor Swift's 12th studio album, "The Life of a Showgirl," arrived on Friday with a promotional blitz including midnight sales at Target stores, a release party at movie theaters around the globe and pop-up experiences in New York and Los Angeles. It follows "The Tortured Poets Department", which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and sold the equivalent of 8 million albums in the United States, according to Luminate, a firm that tracks music sales. Swift's latest offering is expected to be similarly lapped up by her huge global fan base, even though the music press gave the release a mixed response. It became Spotify's most-streamed album of the year, hitting that milestone in less than 11 hours. "With this album it's exactly where I am at in my life," Swift told Britain's Capital Breakfast radio show, kicking off promotional appearances. "I am exactly in the same spot as I was when I made this record so it feels very accurate to my life experience right now." Swift once again worked with Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback on "The Life of a Showgirl," the duo also worked on records including her best-selling album, ''1989,'' and ''Reputation." Many critics praised the upbeat songs and humor on the 12-song album, whose title track features Sabrina Carpenter. Rolling Stone gave it five stars saying Swift "shoots into a fresh echelon of superstardom — and hits all her marks", while Britain's BBC called it "a triumphant pop victory lap."  Awarding it two stars, The Financial Times and Guardian newspapers were cooler, with the former saying the album was "charismatic as ever, but lacks sparkle" and the latter describing it as "dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled." Fans who went to the flagship HMV store in London to buy the album were nonetheless enthusiastic. "It's a little bit of a pivot for her," said Dan Poliak, 62, who lives in Seattle. "But the songs are great … (the album) shows off her songwriting as always, which is her strength. And it's fun. It's a fun album." 'RARE POSITION' Swift has been building anticipation for the album since August 11, when she posted a countdown on her website that kept fans waiting until 12:12 a.m. ET on August 12, when she revealed the new record. The next day, she appeared on the "New Heights" podcast hosted by her fiancé, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and his brother, retired Philadelphia Eagles lineman Jason Kelce. The Top-10 rated sports and pop-culture podcast provided a friendly platform for Swift to talk about the album, which she said had been inspired by the joy she felt while performing around the world on her record-setting Eras Tour. The August 13 episode has surpassed 23.4 million views on YouTube.   "She occupies a very rare position in today's fragmented music landscape: she is an active superstar with a massive and loyal fan base," said Tatiana Cirisano, vice president of music strategy for MIDiA Research. These passionate followers, or "Swifties," help the artist rise to the top of the charts, said Cirisano. "So few can get such a massive number of people listening to the same thing at once. So, it would surprise me a lot if the new release did not reach her usual level of success," she said.  Even before the album was released, the Recording Industry Association of America said Swift had made history as the first and only female artist to surpass 100 million album sales. Once "The Life of a Showgirl" dropped, Google reported spikes in searches for lyrics to new songs, including "Opalite," "Ruin the Friendship" and "Actually Romantic," according to Google Trends.  Swift's globe-trotting Eras Tour was the highest-grossing tour of all time, surpassing $2 billion in ticket sales by the time it concluded in December 2024, according to Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks the concert industry. That figure does not include the boost to hotel and Airbnb rentals, restaurant tabs and merchandise sales.  Academics have said Swift rivals other pop icons, like Elvis or Michael Jackson, in terms of her cultural impact — whether it's driving tune-in to NFL games or leading voter registration drives. Business partners have been eager to tap into the phenomenon that's been dubbed "Swiftonomics." AMC Theatres announced plans to distribute "The Official Release Party of a Showgirl," an 89-minute film that features the album's first music video, "The Fate of Ophelia," behind-the-scenes footage, and Swift's reflections on the album's songs. It will be in limited release, from Friday through Sunday, in more than 50 markets. The limited release is expected to top U.S. and Canadian box office this weekend, bringing in $30 to $50 million in ticket sales, according to Daniel Loria, senior vice president of The Boxoffice Company, which provides insights to the movie industry. Retailer Target opened some stores at midnight to sell a limited-edition vinyl pressing of the album with a "gold shimmer," and three CDs featuring exclusive album and poster art. "Taylor Swift-related products and merchandise have been a bright spot for Target over the last few years, helping to offset sales weakness elsewhere," said Michael Baker, senior research analyst for D.A. Davidson, who noted a previous exclusive Swift book and special-edition vinyl record lifted the retailer's entertainment category. Music streaming service Spotify opened a three-day pop-up in New York on Tuesday, with song lyrics hidden among displays that included a dressing room and other trappings of a concert tour. On Friday, TikTok opened its own "Life of a Showgirl" installation in Los Angeles.  Swift's promotional appearances include stops on "The Graham Norton Show" on Friday, "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Monday and "Late Night with Seth Meyers" on Wednesday. (Additional reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Sarah Mills in London and Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Toby Chopra)

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By Andreas Rinke BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany's Social Democrats, junior partners in Chancellor Friedrich Merz's coalition, will push for a more protectionist stance on Europe's steel industry, urging the EU to adopt a "buy European" strategy, a document seen by Reuters on Saturday showed. The SPD, headed by Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, is due to adopt the proposals next week. They call for the European Commission to adopt a "robust trade protection" strategy to defend against subsidised foreign competitors. "At its core, what is needed is a tariff quota system that effectively limits excessive import volumes while keeping the market controlled and open," the SPD said. The proposals are likely to feed into a steel summit called by the conservative chancellor for this month for steel producers, German states and trade unions to thrash out proposals for supporting the industry. The extent to which the SPD's proposals will be adopted though remains unclear. Most German political parties have previously been against protectionism as the country has for the past two decades been one of the world's greatest beneficiaries of low trade barriers. However, German manufacturers and regulators are now increasingly worried about the distorting impact of competition from China and elsewhere and of U.S. tariffs. "We can't allow domestic value creation to depart just because the international rules are no longer working," the SPD said in the document. "This is not about protectionism, but about enforcing fair competition rules and European strategic interests," it said. The SPD also called for tighter controls on the import of Russian steel, including measures to prevent it entering the European market via Turkey. The SPD in particular has suffered electorally from de-industrialization in its formerly industrial heartlands, seeing the far-right eat into its vote share. (Writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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By Elvira Pollina and Giulio Piovaccari TURIN (Reuters) -Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicted on Friday gigawatt-scale data centres will be built in space within the next 10 to 20 years and that continuously available solar energy meant they would eventually outperform those based on Earth. Speaking at the Italian Tech Week in Turin, Bezos also compared the surge in artificial intelligence to the internet boom of the early 2000s, urging optimism despite the risk of speculative bubbles. The concept of orbital data centres has gained traction among tech giants as those on Earth have driven up demand for electricity and water to cool their servers. "These giant training clusters, those will be better built in space, because we have solar power there, 24/7. There are no clouds and no rain, no weather," Bezos said in a public conversation with Ferrari and Stellantis Chairman John Elkann. "We will be able to beat the cost of terrestrial data centres in space in the next couple of decades." Bezos said the shift to space infrastructure is part of a broader trend of using space to improve life on Earth. "It's already happened with weather and communication satellites," he said. "The next step is data centres, then other kinds of manufacturing." Hosting data centres in space has its own challenges, including the difficulty of maintenance and carrying out upgrades and the cost of launching rockets, as well as the risk the launches may fail. The executive chair of Amazon said the AI wave shares traits with the dot-com era, when massive hype was followed by a crash. "We should be extremely optimistic that the societal and beneficial consequences of AI, like we had with internet 25 years ago, are for real and there to stay," he said. "It is important to decorrelate the potential bubbles and their bursting consequences that might or might not happen from the actual reality," Bezos said, adding that the benefits of AI were expected "to be broadly diffused and it will go everywhere". (Reporting by Elvira Pollina and Giulio Piovaccari; Writing by Elvira Pollina; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Barbara Lewis)

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