October 3rd has been marked on many Swifties’ calendars: that’s the day The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift’s newest album, has come out. First Travis Kelce album, first album after the Eras Tour and after almost a year off the radar: of course, we wanted to see what Taylor has been up to.
But we were also weary of it. I remember that when the announcement of the album came out on @taylornation (August 14th) I was up somewhere in the Alps and had barely any connection. My friend – a fellow Swiftie – opened her phone randomly, opened Instagram, and that’s how we found out. But upon seeing the pictures chosen for the promo, we looked at each other awkwardly, and my friend said: ‘I’m scared. I don’t know what to think.’
We were not really understanding the orange and green match, or in general the entire concept of it.
I have to say, as a diehard Swiftie, I was approaching the release of this album with more anxiety than with excitement. In hindsight, after three consecutive listens of the album, I can say that it was because we knew that, ultimately, this was the album after the peak. It was meant to not be good. I was holding on to the idea that she might be hiding behind all of the glitter and feathers the most heartbreaking and well-written songs (see Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve and You’re On Your Own, Kid in the same album as Bejeweled, or I Can Do It With A Broken Heart’s nice upbeat tempo while the lyrics are quite depressed).
Unfortunately, I was wrong. Overall, what I was most bummed out by were the lyrics. But objectively, after having written lyrical albums like folklore, evermore, and The Tortured Poets Department, were we really pretending she could go higher than that?
In her defence, it’s true that Taylor Swift is held under a standard and scrutiny only reserved to her. If she does something well, it’s her average, but if she does something average, then it’s absolute trash.
Having cleared this, the album per se is not unlistenable, but it is a real downgrade in relation to her previous discography. Allow me a small song by song review of the album:
The Fate of Ophelia: It does have a nice beat and chorus, but it is weak as an opening song.
Elizabeth Taylor: Catchy tune, ‘Been number one but I never had two’ is a well-written line, but that’s about it.
Opalite: If you asked me to recognise this song from any other pop songs of the last fifty years, I would not be able to.
Father Figure: Nice song for TikTok memes.
Eldest Daughter: It would not be a Taylor album without a really heartbreaking metaphor, namely ‘every eldest daughter / was the first lamb to the slaughter’ – appreciated, but really it’s the only highlight of this song.
Ruin The Friendship: Relatable of Taylor to still be talking about that one high school situationship, but the song per se was perfectly average.
Actually Romantic: See Opalite above.
Wi$h Li$t: Reminds me of Glitch from Midnights – not in a good way; it does not fit in the album, it is chaotic in tune, lyrics, everything.
Wood: You know the discomfort when your mother sits you down to talk about the birds and the bees? That’s what it feels like to listen to this song. This one is indefensible.
CANCELLED!: ‘Welcome to my underworld / Where it gets quite dark / At least you know exactly who your friends are / They’re the ones with matching scars’. To be honest, I would have eaten this up in high school. Unfortunately, me and my friends now drink hot tea watching Harry Potter and call it a night of socialising.
Honey: I don’t see the point she is trying to make with this song, and the beat is forgettable.
The Life of a Showgirl: I didn’t mind it, and Sabrina Carpenter was a very good choice of feature for it. Reminds of the I Can Do It With A Broken Heart concept, but as if she’s processed it now. Good closing song.
Ultimately, I would say that the reason why the widespread consensus is that this is ‘Taylor’s worst album yet’ can be ascribed to the fact that it comes after the genuine peak of her career. Surely, she could have produced a better album than this, but our opinions on it would have barely changed. A demonstration of this is how on TikTok edits to her songs are already popping out of more or less any fandom: some of the songs per se are not awful, but since they come after ‘The Prophecy’, ‘champagne problems’, ‘my tears ricochet’, to our ears they come off as AI-generated trash.
In a juxtaposition that will send the purists in a fit, Bob Dylan over the course of his career released forty studio albums, yet in the end those that brought him – and still keep him – to fame were the ones released in the span of the years 1963 – 1965, with the possible exception of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). That is to say that even legends have had their peaks and their descents: but their peaks were so high (like Dylan’s) that the benefit of time erases that there were even lows. Except, there were.
Time will tell if Taylor Swift will actually become a legend or not. What can be said is that chances are she has now officially surpassed her ‘peak era’. With the eras tour she has altered cities’ economies, caused earthquakes, and had street names changed in her honour. She has been top-listened on Spotify and many other charts. Objectively and statistically – as in, looking at her stats – she cannot go higher than that, and this album is the proof of it. And that is perfectly normal: she is a human being, not a jukebox.
What actually concerns me is that the downgrade in her songwriting is happening simultaneously with her political affiliations. Passing over (in this article, not morally) the fact that she has been hanging out with people that are part of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, for all that one topic we cannot ignore is that she has not spoken out on Palestine. Contrary to others who are in her social sphere (for example, Gracie Abrams), she has never once used her powerful voice to speak on Palestine. At this point in time and history, not speaking out on Palestine cannot be taken as ‘not engaging in politics’ (which is an excuse more often than not, but this is a whole other topic), but it’s downright indifference to what the world is – way too slowly – finally recognising as a genocide.
What I believe it should be hoped for is not that she produces a better album – she has released twelve of those – but that she acts better as a public figure, above all as she has such a hold on the younger generation. It is unfortunate that she wrote ‘redwood tree / it ain’t hard to see’; it is problematic how she is associating with the worst form of Republicanism.
