I have loved Taylor Swift since she graced my screen in Hannah Montana: The Movie. I remember being a kid and pretending the trampoline in my backyard was my stage as I belted “Picture to Burn” with so much conviction you would have thought I had experienced some life-altering heartbreak at 8 years old. My parents would give me a CD of her newest album each Christmas so I could play them over and over on my hot pink stereo until I remembered each and every lyric (the good old days).
(Me, Halloween circa 2016)
alloween circa 2016
Despite all of this, when Taylor Swift announced that her 12th studio album The Life of a Showgirl was going to be released on October 3rd, I was nervous. I disliked the title and the cover art, which isn’t unforgivable on its own; but the fact that the album was announced on Travis and Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast made me fear that the impending album would not be for me, but for Travis Kelce. Which… is fine.
Nonetheless, as the album approached, my fears faded and were replaced by excitement. I stayed up until midnight on October 2nd, ready to hear my favorite artist’s new project, and with each song that played I deflated more and more.
I struggled with how I was going to tackle writing about this album, since I feel so many different ways about it. I decided it would be best by giving each song a rating and a one-sentence justification for that rating, just to contextualize my thoughts before I discuss my overall thoughts on the album.
“The Fate of Ophelia”: (9/10) The lyrics are complex enough without being convoluted, and it’s overall just a fun song to listen to.
“Elizabeth Taylor”: (5/10) Billionaire Taylor Swift writes, “Oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me”.
“Opalite”: (6/10) A fun song to listen to, but lyrically means next to nothing.
“Father Figure”: (7/10) It almost feels unfair to give this song a higher ranking than the others since the melody of the chorus is credited to George Michael.
“Eldest Daughter”: (4/10) It’s a shame because it’s a nice sounding melody, but it’s paired with lyrics like, “Every joke’s just trolling and memes”, “I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness”, “I’m not a bad bitch and this isn’t savage”, and “Every eldest daughter was the first lamb to the slaughter so we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire”.
“Ruin the Friendship”: (8/10) Taylor Swift is a great storyteller.
“Actually Romantic”: (4/10) The thesis of this song is “If you don’t like me then you must have a crush on me”, it’s immature and I feel like I’ve heard it a million times.
“Wi$h Li$t”: (7/10) Nothing glaringly bad about it, but Taylor Swift has written about love in much more meaningful ways in the past.
“Wood”: (2/10) Sounds like a song that would be used in the ending montage of a Minions movie, and she name drops Travis Kelce’s podcast.
“CANCELLED!”: (2/10) Impossible to relate to as I am not a celebrity with a problematic inner circle, and also features the lyric, “Did you girl boss too close to the sun?”.
“Honey”: (5/10) Unique concept for a love song, unfortunately boring execution.
“The Life of a Showgirl” (feat. Sabrina Carpenter): (5/10) The opening lyrics, “Her name was Kitty; Made her money being pretty and witty; they gave her the keys to the city; then said she didn’t do it legitly”, truly sound like she typed “Kitty” into Rhymezone and plugged in the first four words that came up.
Overall album rating: 4.9/10
I don’t mean to be overly critical, I truly wanted to love this album, and I especially did not want a new Taylor Swift album to add more fuel to the ever-moving Taylor Swift hate train that seems to analyze her lyrics deeper than her own fans do sometimes. But I also think it’s important for artists to hear criticism of their work, especially when they are as successful as Taylor Swift. My main gripe with this album is not even that every song is outrageously bad, it’s that most of the songs feel like filler meant to take up the space between her references to Travis Kelce and Charli XcX that fans and critics alike get to make TikToks about.
Critics of the album have attributed the underwhelming nature of this album to this idea that Taylor Swift is losing her relatability; that she is now too wealthy or too famous or too in love to write lyrics that resonate with individual people. And while a few lyrics on this album help me see where these critics may be coming from, I overall disagree with this idea. Taylor Swift has proven time and time again that she is capable of telling compelling and emotional stories that often have nothing to do with her own personal life.
Her 2020 album folklore features three songs “betty”, “august”, and “cardigan” that each showcase a different perspective of three high schoolers involved in a love triangle. Her album evermore features the song “no body, no crime”, tells the story of a woman murdering her best friend’s cheating husband, and even her album Lover features “Death by a Thousand Cuts”, a classic breakup song despite her having been in a long-term relationship at the time. All of this to say, Taylor Swift does not need to live through something to write about it.
I think it’s enough to say that The Life of a Showgirl is just boring, and doesn’t live up to her previous work, without attributing that to some personal failure. Every artist has an album that doesn’t live up to the rest, and Taylor Swift is, evidently, no exception.