Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl

Taylor Swift LLC is pretty much the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This web of interconnected content, full of easter eggs and references. And if The Life of a Showgirl was a MCU phase, it’d be phase 4. A point during which the MCU grew too fast and tried to do too many things at once — resulting in a lack of focus and quality control. And because a mandate seemed to be to just put shit out and saturate the market, what once seemed like something special which had heart and valued storytelling, just became viewed as a corporate machine where the primary goal was to rack up numbers.

I mean, shit. Taylor even has a song called “Endgame”.

If you’re a little bit lost and don’t know what a Marvel Movie Galaxy is. It’s fine. The cliff note is that The Life of a Showgirl comes off like a business choice as opposed to a creative one. And with this album I don’t see Taylor Swift the songwriter or Taylor Swift the artist. I see Taylor Swift, the president of Taylor Swift LLC.

‘But what does any of this have to do with the music though?’. Everything. Because so little of The Life of a Showgirl feels like it centres the music or the art of making it. Where-as Taylor’s previous albums felt like they were necessary for her creatively and personally to some degree, The Life of a Showgirl does not. And the impact this has on the music is that it feels like Taylor is clutching at straws for things to write songs about. So she just writes about whatever to get something out. Because the importance of this album is not the music, the message or Taylor exercising her ability and need to tell stories. The importance is that this album breaks streaming records, that its merch sells and its title trends — which is a far cry from the likes of Folklore.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

The Life of a Showgirl does not make sense when you look at it as a package. And I think this is how you need to look at Taylor’s albums, because it’s been clear for quite some time that this is how she wants them to be seen. Taylor Swift has always been conscious of making each album feel like its own little world. But I think The Eras Tour really shifted Taylor’s approach to ‘album eras’ and that this may have contributed to The Life of a Showgirl being a bit of an orange sparkled mess. Because there is a complete disconnect between the album title, the visual concept and the music itself. And it’s notably Taylor’s first album where this has occurred.

I’m a J-pop fan. So I’m very used to an act dropping an album which features 7 singles released over the course of 3 years and then an album with only 4 new songs — with those 4 new songs being the ONLY ones that tie in to the album title and visual concept, which clearly came long after the singles were recorded. But me being used to it, doesn’t mean that I like it, and will just let it slide. Especially in instances where everything so easily could have been tied together. And especially from an artist who knows better and has done better. Also, Taylor Swift is not a J-pop artist.

Then there is the Max Martin and Shellback of it all.

Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

When I first listened to The Life of a Showgirl, I wondered what even was the point was in working with Max Martin, when the entire album sounded like something Jack Antanoff could have done. Max Martin hasn’t really been on his shit for a while now. It was also a problem I had with Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine, but that’s a whole other post you can read here. But as for why Taylor chose to reunite with Max Martin for the first time since her 2017 album, Reputation — I arrived at two reasons. The first being that the music on this album was being worked on at the same time as The Tortured Poets Department. So, in order to allow Jack Antonoff to focus on producing music for that, Taylor chose to work with different producers for The Life of a Showgirl. The second reason being that Taylor was very aware of people’s complaints of how tired they were of her working with Jack Antanoff. So, she chose to go right back to Max Martin — the man who helped Taylor transition into pop on her 2012 album Red and would produce the majority of its follow up, 1989. And these aren’t exclusively ‘either, or’ reasons. Taylor’s decision was probably a combination of both. But the inclusion of Max Martin was also considered an important part of the PR for this album, because it was one of the first pieces of information which went out about the album after the announcements of the title and release date. Taylor Swift LLC and Swift Action PR knew full well that news of Max Martin producing the entire album in conjunction with the album title was going to set an expectation amongst fans of the sound — ‘Y’ALL. WE’RE GETTING 1989 PART 2. WE WON.’

Y’all did not win.

And then there is the music itself. Not so much the quality of it — we’ll get to that — but how little the music captures any element of the album title. I don’t think it’s crazy for people to have expected an album which was bright and vibrant sonically, because…that’s what most associate with a showgirl. But darkness, mystery, sacrifice and tragedy could also be what some associate with a showgirl. But this album doesn’t dial into either side. Not fully.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

When The Life of a Showgirl was announced, I expected that the album would be Taylor talking about the trappings of fame, how she navigates it and the impact that it has on her relationships. Her ex Joe Alwyn was reportedly not comfortable with Taylor’s level of fame. Comparatively, Taylor’s current football playing fiancé with the podcast seems to revel in her level of fame. Surely there’s a song there. Taylor has also found herself thrust into conversations around politics and declaring her stance on world matters and affairs. And there is a lot to be said of how many pop stars with huge platforms who just wanna sing cute songs and perform are told to speak up about political issues, when doing so could prevent them from singing their cute songs and performing. Just look at what happened to the Dixie Chicks — something Taylor was very aware of when she was pushed to make a public political statement in 2018, as seen in her Miss Americana documentary. Surely there’s a song there too. But The Life of a Showgirl isn’t about Taylor’s fame and how this impacts different facets of her life. And it’s also not a fictitious story of a showgirl which is loosely based on her own life. It’s largely about how she’s the cat that got Travis Kelce’s cream. Well, it’s actually not. Only 5 out of the 12 songs are actually about him. But the whole album being about him ends up being the takeaway, because so often Taylor’s albums are defined by who she was with or who she is currently with. And off the back of The Tortured Poets Department, I think Taylor saying ‘We’re gonna talk about me and how I feel in this circus that is my life’ would have made far more sense and made for a better album.

The Life of a Showgirl doesn’t feel like an album which was properly planned and roadmapped. I mean, how are you putting out an album called The Life of a Showgirl, but turning down the Superbowl!? GURL. But the general branding and the packaging feels completely at odds with the music. And I find this so baffling, given how obvious the Taylor Swift and showgirl connection is, and what could have been done with that. To me it feels obvious. You would think it would have been obvious to Taylor, Max Martin and Shellback, but clearly it wasn’t. And sure, there is a song called “Elizabeth Taylor” and it’s a good song. But it also comes off like Taylor checking off a box to justify to herself that the album has at least one song which correlates with the album title.

So, The Life of a Showgirl is already a type of discombobulated mess and this is before we even really get into the music.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

I will be up front. I have never been a huge fan of Taylor Swift’s music. Taylor has songs and albums that I really do like. “New Romantics”? Way too good to have just been a bonus track. “...Ready for It?”. Kinda fire. “Cruel Summer”? Shoulda been a single. Folklore? Taylor Swift was in her tote bag. “Anti Hero”? Amazing. But I have never seen her as this genius songwriter with an untouchable discography. Many of Taylor’s peers and more besides have put out music which I think overshoots hers my miles. All this to say that my bar for The Life of a Showgirl was never high, because my bar for Taylor Swift isn’t high. So this album not being good isn’t some huge shock to me. Especially after Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department — neither of which I thought were particularly good.

And speaking of Midnights — I felt that album would have been better as an EP, and I feel the same way about The Life of a Showgirl. In an alternate universe, Midnights would have been an EP. And The Life of a Showgirl would not be an album. It would not even be titled The Life of a Showgirl. It would be an EP titled Daylights, with the same branding and aesthetic as Midnights. Because so much of this album feels like a continuation of Midnights in a sense. On Midnights Taylor mentioned marriage with disdain, because of how marriage was projected onto her as something she should want or be considering. And Taylor seemed to convince herself that she wasn’t marriage material. But on The Life of a Showgirl, a bitch is engaged. On Midnights Taylor talks about the magic of falling in love with somebody, likening the beauty of it to the northern lights. And on The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor is in love again and singing about skies of opalite. On Midnights Taylor laments to herself ‘You’re on your own kid’. But on The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor is Don Corleone.

There is also a line which can be drawn directly down the middle of this album, because the top half of the album is good, but the back end is…less good. Hence, EP.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is great at telling stories. But she isn’t always great at writing songs. When she gets it right, she nails it. But when she gets it wrong, it’s a piece of shit on teal coloured tiles. And a big problem with the songs on The Life of a Showgirl, is that the stories in each of the songs are really cool, but the execution of these stories through Taylor’s songwriting makes them fall short.

After Folklore and Evermore, Taylor seems to be in this place creatively where she wants to tell more stories through song, without thinking too much about structure and a strong topline. But she also knows that she needs songs that can play on radio and will hit on a tour — neither of which applied to most of Folklore. And Taylor’s struggle is balancing these two types of songs on one album. Taylor struggled with this on The Tortured Poets Department. But I think the length of that album, everything bleeding into one and the monotony of the entire album masked this to a point. Also, The Tortured Poets Department didn’t feature enough peaks and troughs to really highlight the disparity in quality between songs — the entire album was like a flatline. But with The Life of a Showgirl being so much shorter at a lean 13 songs, and the highs being high and lows being the lowest sublayer of Donkey Kong Bananza, the difference in quality between songs and defining what separates them is so much more glaring. The shifts between Taylor in quill mode and Taylor in pop ballpoint pen mode has never felt more obvious.

But the bigger issue with the songs — aside from the ranges in quality — is that it is so clear that Taylor had no focus with this album. There is no narrative thread which runs through these songs. And the stories that Taylor tells aren’t the most interesting versions of the stories which perhaps should have been told. This really is an album of bad choices and zero thought.

There are moments when Taylor gets it kinda right though.

Kinda.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

“The Fate of Ophelia” manages to strike a nice balance between Taylor’s quill and her pop ballpoint pen — exclaiming that her football player rescued her from falling from a tree and drowning like O-fizzle. The chorus is kinda clunky, but the melody of it is still extremely catchy.

“Elizabeth Taylor” is kinda clunky. But the premise of the song, the vibe of it and it being sequenced between “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Opalite” help it. Much like “The Fate of Ophelia”, Taylor gets points for using somebody else’s story and applying it to her own experiences in a way that works.

“Opalite” is just a really fun song. The pop ballpoint pen is working its magic. It’s super jaunty and is the first song on the album where the sound of the song feels like it captures some element of the album title — especially during the hook, which is full Rockettes perform Hairspray at Radio City Music Hall. “Opalite” is also the first song on the album where the influence of Max Martin is abundantly clear.

“Father Figure” stars Taylor Swift as The Godfather, which is a really great song idea. Because given Taylor’s level of fame, power and what feels like a monopoly on the music industry — it’s a rather apt comparison, but not an obvious one people would make. But there isn’t enough of a story in the song aside from ‘I am The Godfather’. Taylor using her masters debacle as the narrative would have made the song juicier and tied it closer to her. Framing Scooter Bruan as some wannabe mobster trying to fuck up some of Taylor’s turf. And her biding her time to circle back around and pop him in the back with a tommy gun. Baby, THIS is a song that woulda got the Internet talking. And the showgirl angle could have been ‘Don’t let this headdress and sparky bikini fool you. I take care of my business.’ Especially with the world of showgirls being dependent on women, but largely being managed by men who felt all too comfortable to put a monetary value on the work of those women.

But there are moments where Taylor gets it so wrong.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

“Eldest Daughter” is the first instance on the album where I realised that Taylor has lost the plot a little, and perhaps doesn’t have the greatest sense of awareness. A lack of awareness becomes somewhat of a theme in the second half of the album. I guess Taylor should get some points for at least having a theme. Even if it’s a wrong one and an accidental one at that.

“Eldest Daughter” is written from Taylor’s perspective of being…the eldest daughter and the pressure that comes with that. But the problem here is that it’s difficult to take this song seriously and feel anything for Taylor’s boo-hoo’s given her stature right now. And there is no angle to this song aside from ‘Being the eldest daughter was tough, boo-hoo’. Beyoncé managed to take the concept of being a child with a dream and the toll it took on her and her family to realise that dream for “16 Carriages” and nailed it. And she also managed to deliver two great and extremely creative songs about being a daughter on “Daddy Lessons” and “Daughter”.

Had Taylor framed “Eldest Daughter” from the perspective of how men are quick to shame, demean and put women down, with no disregard for the fact that these women are somebody’s daughters, this would have given the song so much more weight. Taylor could have talked about the VMA moment with Kanye and posed the question of how he would feel if somebody shamed his daughter the way he shamed Taylor so publicly. She could have posed the question to Scooter Braun about how he would feel if somebody snatched away his daughter’s access to own her life’s works. She could have posed the question to the guy who sexually assaulted her about how he would have felt if somebody had done that to his daughter and then called her a liar. And the showgirl angle to all of this could have been how men with daughters don’t see showgirls as real people, despite these showgirls being people’s daughters. But instead, “Eldest Daughter” says absolutely nothing. Taylor took the most basic route with this song when there was so much she could have said to have made the song meaningful.

There is even a moment in Miss Americana where Taylor’s father is begging her not to put out a political statement, out of fear for her life. Where was this song!?

Taylor’s lack of awareness returns on “Ruin the Friendship”. A song about a childhood friend who she felt a connection with, but never acted on it because he was in a relationship. But all these years later, Taylor is like ‘Damn. I shoulda just kissed that boy.’ This sounds harmless, fine and cute. Until you realise that the childhood friend she’s singing about is dead. So, Taylor’s takeaway is ‘Damn, he dead. I really wish I hooked up with him’.

The Life of a ShowGIRL. Really!?

A better framing for this song could have been a story about a showgirl who had a friend, but that friendship started to fade the more the showgirl pursued her dream of making it. And the days where she should have been there for her friend, she chose to be at parties and shows instead — unaware that this friend was dying. Her dream to make it slowly morphed into greed, with her cutting out anything and anybody that didn’t contribute to her fame and fortune. And she’s left with the guilt of knowing that she ruined a friendship over an obsession with fame. And every time she looks at her lavish lifestyle and riches, she will forever be reminded of how she neglected the one person in her life who truly loved her, and it will forever haunt her.

“CANCELLED!” is just terrible. With the lyrics ‘Maybe somebody girlbossed a little too close to the sun’ — the song feels like something a 16 year old posted to Tumble in 2014. It’s truly horrendous. I think Taylor should have steered away from ‘cancelled’ anything, in light of her relationship with Crackhead Spike Spiegel, and how she completely disregarded the things he had done which he really shoulda been cancelled for, all because the unwashed dick was too bomb. Also, she kinda tackled this topic from a different angle in a far more creative manner on The Tortured Poets Department with “Daddy, I Love Him!”.

“CANCELLED!” feels like a leftover from “Reputation” which was lying around in the vaults, that Taylor chose to repurpose for this album. It’s clear she just wanted a reaction from the title alone, but wasn’t able to come up with a song which incorporates it in a decent way.

“Wi$h Li$t” and “Honey” are both rubbish. I’m not getting into those songs. And the album title track is just a last ditch attempt to try and give the album some context and framing. But it doesn’t work, because the song feels so separate from the rest of the album and comes off like an afterthought.

And then are the moments where I’m like ‘Aww, she tried’.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

“Actually Romantic” is allegedly the Charli XCX diss record in response to the Brat song “Sympathy Is a Knife” which was about how Charli felt when she was around Taylor Swift.

Now, I actually do like the song itself. I like that it’s more punk rock than we’ve heard Taylor go before — which was probably Max Martin’s idea, given that he’s a punk rocker at heart. And I also think that the premise of the song is actually fun. ‘You seem to have a problem with me that borders on obsession. Maybe you’re actually kind of in love with me actually. And…d’you know what? I think I kinda like that you are.’ It’s very cool. My only issue with the song is the alleged Charli XCX of it all. Because if this song is a response to “Sympathy Is a Knife”, then it’s in poor taste.

“Sympathy Is a Knife” was not just Charli saying that she didn’t like Taylor. “Sympathy Is a Knife” was an acknowledgement that the reason Charli didn’t like Taylor or being around her was because she flared up her insecurities. So for Taylor to allegedly have taken that and fixated on ‘SHE DOESN’T LIKE ME’ and made a song about that, it’s shallow. Allegedly. But if this is allegedly what “Actually Romantic” is, it’s to be expected. Because one thing Taylor loves to do is paint herself as a victim in every scenario. And Taylor is also perpetually a 16 year old high schooler.

It’s a real shame, because I think “Actually Romantic” is a good song. But knowing the context of it, I find it difficult to enjoy it, because it feels mean-spirited and as though Taylor is punching down. On “Elizabeth Taylor” Taylor speaks of how much she wants grace. And yet she allegedly didn’t afford this to somebody else who acknowledges that they weren’t on their best foot and was a bit of a bitch due to being in their own head and self-loathing — something Taylor knows a fair bit about and even wrote a song about. It’s songs such as this that make you look back and say ‘Wow. Maybe Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry were right about dis bitch’. And speaking of Katy Perry, this whole album sounds like an album of hers.

I actually like when Taylor is petty. But there is a difference between being petty and just being mean. Calling Charli ‘coked up’ wasn’t petty. It was foul and Taylor knows it. And it’s a shame, because I think the sound of the song — even if it is just Weezer’s “Teenage Dirtbag” — and the framing is so good.

Allegedly.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

I also like the song “Wood”. I think it’s one of the better sounding songs on the album because it is so catchy. And much like “Opalite”, not only does Max Martin poke his head out so clearly on this song, but it also touches on a sound and vibe we’ve not heard from Taylor before — a classic Motown vibe, with an intro which sounds a heck of a lot like The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”.

“Wood” is probably going to be a pretty divisive song, because of the lyrics. And I get it. Hearing Taylor sing a song about liking it rock hard and how her man makes her open her thighs feels kinda wrong, because Taylor has never written a song about sex before. And because Taylor is perpetually 16 years old, it feels REALLY wrong. Now, had Sabrina Carpenter done this song, it would have hit differently — which is why I think she should have featured on instead of the album title track.

What lets “Wood” down for me is not that the lyrics are ‘cringe’, because all of Taylor’s lyrics are cringy — sometimes endearingly so. Also, most songs about fucking have cringy lyrics. What lets the song down is that Taylor doesn’t commit fully to the absurdity and the smut of it all. If you are going to write a song about wanting to be dicked down, you can’t just put the tip in. You have to shove in every single inch. Ariana Grande’s “34+35”, Sabrina Carpenter’s “House Tour” and Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love” and “Blow” all work, because not only are they ridiculous, but each of the ladies know the songs are ridiculous and they lean fully into it. And not only do they lean into it, they stand up in the ridiculousness of it all. Taylor even self censors the word ‘dick’ on this song. Like, gurl. C’mon. You say the word ‘fuck’ on several songs on this album and you even say the word ‘dick’ on “Father Figure”. STAND UP. Tell us you want Travis to pour Gatorade on your titties and lick it off. Tell us you want his NFL (Nut For Life). Tell us he calls your pussy Olivia Benson. Be frank and absurd as hell. But aside from not being absurd enough, the worldplay in “Wood” also isn’t clever or cool enough. “Wood” is about as basic as Katy Perry’s “Peacock”. She didn’t even try to write the song in a way where the word play is fun and kinda clever — which is another thing that Ariana, Sabrina and Beyoncé’s fuck bops all delivered on.

“Wood” could have been so much fun if Taylor said ‘Fuck it’. Quite literally.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

So much about this album doesn’t make sense, despite the pieces being there for it to not only make sense, but to be something really good and also different for Taylor which makes sense for her now. There are also so many stories — both fictitious and true — that Taylor could have pulled from to have inspired a narrative for this album and each of its songs. The film Showgirls. The film Striptease. Marilyn Munroe. Sally Rand. Josephine Baker (Taylor would never though). Dita Von Teese — who Taylor worked with for the music video for “Bejeweled”. And then there is Taylor herself. Creating an album around a showgirl theme would have made so much sense after Taylor being on such a long-ass tour, where she went through big life transitions. And for her also being at a point in her career where she could offer stories and anecdotes about what it is like to be a woman on the world stage with the insane level of fame that she has. It’s kinda bonkers that the one song which fits The Life of a Showgirl best wasn’t even on this album — it was on The Tortured Poets Department.

As for the Travis Kelce of it all, the songs about him on this album feel so incredibly surface level. The 16 year old really jumped out on these songs.

‘Ehmuhghad, I thought I was gonna kill myself untill he came along.’
— Taylor Swift, The Fate of Ophelia

‘He’s so much better with me, then with her.’
— Taylor Swift, “Opalite”

‘Like MTV Cribs.’
— Taylor Swift, “Wi$h Li$t”

‘Gurl. It’s so big.’
— Taylor Swift, “Wood”

‘He left a Winnie the Pooh card in my locker and I just DIED.’
— Taylor Swift, “Honey”

High schooler is Taylor’s schtick. I get it. But even so, when Taylor had written songs about her partners in the past, there was at least SOME substance. But I think the problem here is that I don’t think anybody has ever really cared much about Taylor’s relationships until after the fact, when she would write songs about them. The only relationship I recall that had people leaning in with interest and being vocal was when she was with Crackhead Spike Spiegel, because she was with him at a time when his shitbaggery was public, and everybody was like ‘Girl, really? You wanna be with HIM!?’. But what I think it really boils down to is Taylor’s compulsion to make songs about her partners. She didn’t need to put out a whole album which was largely about Crackhead Spike Spiegel, because everybody had done moved on from that. But she did it anyway. And she didn’t need to make a third of this album about Travis. But she did that anyway. And it’s all a damn shame, because I think some of Taylor’s best songs are those where she speaks about how she feels about herself, the world around her and how the world sees her. The songs about Crackhead Spike Spiegel on The Tortured Poets Department may have provided people with the tea, but they were not the most compelling songs. And the same can be said for the Travis songs here. The Life of a Showgirl should have been an album about Taylor or a fictitious showgirl with parallels to Taylor.

Another problem with these Travis songs is something which fucks up quite a few songs on this album — shitty framing. The songs about Travis shouldn’t have been ‘My man, my man, he’s my man, oh my God, my man’. They should have been about how he makes Taylor feel. I think an interesting framing would have been that Travis doesn’t shy from the spotlight and that he is fine being in it with Taylor. Because it seems that she was so used to being in a relationship where she had to change her approaches to aspects of her life, in order to be mindful of how uncomfortable her level of fame made her boyfriend — who wasn’t famous at all and didn’t really want to be. And the showgirl angle to this could be that Travis pushes her to shine and be the best showgirl she can be, without her having to apologise for her level of fame. And another angle could be how Taylor feels to be with somebody who has their own level of fame, wealth and is closer to her in this regard. Because I can’t imagine Joe Alwyn was putting up the coin that Travis is now.

Taylor went from being with somebody who struggled with her level of fame and wasn’t making big money, to somebody who welcomes her fame and is making his own big money. And whilst Taylor being with somebody who likes to live off the grid with a flip phone was probably appealing and freeing for her at first, I can imagine she is feeling a sense of relief at being with somebody like Travis, who is like ‘Bitch. Put me on the stage. Turn the cameras on.’

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

For a pop star who always seems to have so much to say in their music, it’s actually shocking how little Taylor says on this album. Every time I listen to The Life of a Showgirl I try to figure out ‘What was the purpose of this album?’ as though maybe I missed something the first time around. But I always arrive at the same answer — Taylor Swift LLC just wanted to have commerce out. Nothing about this album feels like it was driven by a desire to tell stories, a creative necessity or as though Taylor just had to put this music out into the world. This album is just a way to sell more things, and that’s abundantly clear with the sheer amount of variants this album has. And it’s really disappointing, because Taylor Swift LLC could have said ‘Fuck it, there needs to be something for the Swifties to buy’, but still delivered a good album which felt essential to the Taylor Swift lexicon. But that didn’t happen. Instead The Life of a Showgirl ended up as slop. 

One good thing I will say about this album is that I like how Taylor sounds. As much as I didn’t like Midnights or The Tortured Poets Department, I liked how her voice sounded on a lot of the songs. On Midnights in particular, I really liked how Taylor’s vocals were mixed. And on The Life of a Showgirl, I really like some of the vocal arrangements. “Opalite” and “Wood” feature some really nice harmonies and layering that I’m not used to hearing from Taylor. And the other songs also feature sprinkles of cool layering and harmonies. It’d be really cool to hear Taylor explore the use of her voice as a part of the music on an album where she actually gives a damn.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl | Republic Records / Taylor Swift

There is no real sense of what The Life of Showgirl was even supposed to be conceptually or what the core of it may have been when you listen to it. As much as I didn’t like Midnights or The Tortured Poets Department, I at least got what Taylor was trying to do with those albums. I don’t get what The Life of a Showgirl was supposed to be, because it is so all over the place. Nothing about it really sticks aside from the smell of the doo-doo on the teal coloured tiles. And in conjunction with this, Taylor shows zero growth on this album. Not just musically but personally. Because a lot of this album feels incredibly regressive. Almost as though Taylor isn’t even sure herself of who she is, so she’s just scrambling around in the dark trying to find that. I think that Taylor re-recording her old albums was more than just ‘I WANNA OWN MY SHIT AND FUCK OVER SCOOTER BRAUN’. I think it was Taylor choosing to throw herself back into her old songs, because she finds comfort in them. Because she hasn’t gotta think about or figure out who she is as a grown woman in her thirties. She can just sit in who she was in her teens and early twenties. And this is relatable. And the idea of struggling with your identity and wanting to cling to the past, whilst having people around you who want you to simultaneously grow up and do new stuff, but stay young and do your old shit — this all could have been written about for an album. Is this not potentially the life of a showgirl?

Taylor, Max Martin and Shellback phoned this entire album in. And for three people whose careers are not only music, know more than most the power of music and the privilege they have to make it and have it be heard at scale — for them to have not exercised every ounce of creativity that they could have to make something special, meaningful and worth listening to is disappointing. But I’m not surprised at how this album turned out. I’ve never felt Taylor’s music was so consistently amazing, that I could never fathom her releasing a bad album, because to me, she already did that with Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department. So, I’m just here like, ‘Well, here she goes again.’

The Life of a Showgirl is a very revealing album. And I imagine that it is going to be a sobering moment for some Swifties, because they’ll see Taylor for the person she actually is now. That perhaps her songwriting is not that great. That perhaps her knack for picking material isn’t always that great. That perhaps for all of her ‘girlbossing’ on her albums, that she could do with somebody to steer her creatively. That perhaps they have outgrown Taylor who is stuck as that 16 year old highschooler. And that Taylor Swift is no longer the plucky young girl with the guitar who just wants to put out music and perform. She is the president of Taylor Swift LLC, and the focus is not storytelling through great pop songs — it’s commerce. So, open your snakeskin Reputation purse and come buy 23 of these 74 variants and this Taylor Swift x Shein merch.

Album highlights:
▪ The Fate of Ophelia
▪ Opalite 🥇

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💿 Taylor Swift album reviews: Lover | Midnights | The Tortured Poets Department