taylor_swift_life_of_a_showgirl

Taylor Swift has shipped her 12th album, following up last year's The Tortured Poet's Department. Accompanied by producer Max Martin and guitarist Shellback, Taylor continues to pump out content to satiate the clamoring swiftie hoard. I will reiterate: this is content.

Swifties

As an outsider (non-swiftie), the fanfare and obsession that Taylor's music garners far outweighs the artistic merit by orders of magnitude. How to reconcile? I've read a few articles from The New Yorker that help readjust the perspective. Here is a snip from Why Normal Music Reviews No Longer Make Sense For Taylor Swift:

But whereas critics came for the “folk,” fans stayed for the “lore,” and that is the primary appeal of Swift’s latest release. “The Tortured Poets Department,” or “T.T.P.D.,” is nothing short of a Rorschach test. The tepid music reviews often miss the fact that “music” is something that Swift stopped selling long ago. Instead, she has spent two decades building the foundation of a fan universe, filled with complex, in-sequence narratives that have been contextualized through multiple perspectives across eleven blockbuster installments. She is not creating standalone albums but, rather, a musical franchise.

The article goes on:

Why do we compare Swift with singer-songwriters like Grande and Beyoncé, and not with Bob Iger, the media executive who turned Disney into a two-hundred-billion-dollar company? Disney owns two of the largest fan properties in existence: Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel villains include Thanos and Doctor Doom; Taylor Swift’s villains include Scooter Braun and Kim Kardashian.

Taylor's entire body of work is some sort of musical simulacrum: it is an alternative universe where the god-like Taylor persona outweighs the songs themselves. It might not be appropriate to judge this as music, rather than as a vehicle for fantasy world-craft and corporate brand-building. If I were to try to judge this on artistic merit alone, this review would be a bloodbath.

The Songs

From the jump, we see a nod to those university courses that align her with Shakespeare. Almost like rage-bait publicity stunts, nobody really looked further into the content of the lectures and Swifties and Swift herself seem happy drawing their own conclusions from these headlines. Enter: Ophelia. Obviously this song is about Travis Kelce 'saving her' from the fate of Ophelia (basically she is betrayed by Hamlet, who turns on her, and she goes crazy and drowns. the irony here is that travis kelce actually is a huge piece of shit and if anything she has already signed herself to ophelia's fate by marrying him). There's not much more to it than that. There isn't much meat for the fan to sink their teeth into, either. It's a cut and dry message about Travis. The cringe moment of the song is actually in the chorus: pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes. Girl, what the hell does pledge allegiance to your hands mean? Is it because he catches footballs? Weirdly literal thing to say. At least the song itself finds a bouncy pop groove that opens the album up with the 'showgirl' energy it suggested it might bring.

Elizabeth Taylor! I actually laughed out loud at this goofy opening. Now this is the good stuff. Back to back song titles containing the name of a tragic female figure, Swift is subtly invites us to canonize her next. We go from the actually mythological Ophelia to a more real and more recent Elizabeth Taylor (see what she's doing here?), and we are well on our way to thinking about what other women we could iconize next (hmm, I wonder who...). Another master stroke here is to spur the swift fanbase to research who Elizabeth Taylor is, because they definitely don't know. Here is one fun thread to pull on:

I'd cry my eyes violet, Elizabeth Taylor

Violet eyes is a fragrance 'by Elizabeth Taylor', but it could be alluding to her suspected lavender marriage. Also, Elizabeth Taylor is direct inspiration for The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (a very popular book in the swiftie demographic), and now we're getting somewhere. Is Taylor Swift actually Evelyn Hugo? Has she had some bisexual feelings? The swifties can now crack open their piles of Swift lore and start drawing sub rosa lines between eras and verses. How fun. Musically, the digitized boom-clap stadium beat and low-end grand piano slams overpower the faint movie soundtrack strings and electric guitar ornamentation. The mixing is totally out of whack here and it betrays the concept of the song. If we're talking movie-star Elizabeth Taylor, then let those 50's hollywood aesthetics shine through. Her ad-libs are also extremely awkward, and the overall visual is like a lanky uncoordinated high school basketball cheerleader trying to hype us up at halftime when our dogshit team is already down 30 points. The brand and worldbuilding here gets an A and the song itself gets like a D+.

Batting third in the lineup, Opalite should have been a payoff song, but it is a dud all around. It is shallow in both worldbuilding and general songcraft. It feels like this is the output of like an 'earworm' session where they tried to the catchiest melody (catchiness does not make a song good. I get 1-877-kars-4-kids stuck in my head all the time). It summons earlier eras of Swift music like layers of a vanilla cake all wrapped tightly in an overbearingly sweet bubblegum pop processed frosting. It's an un-appetizing fondant structure sealed off in one of those plastic cases that is super loud when you try to separate the top from the bottom.

After my first listen through, Father Figure stuck with me because of how uncomfortable it made me feel. You just can't rhyme 'my dick's bigger' with 'I'll be your father figure'. You just can't. No matter the surrounding context of verses, you just can't escape that icky combo. Ew. The song itself is pretty straightforward again - very direct discussion about her previous disingenuous and self-interested father figures and her own newly found similar role. Like with Elizabeth Taylor, she attempts to muster up some some bravado, swagger, anything... but misses by a mile. She's just ain't that. Shimmering synths and slightly more human structure and instrumentation do not save it in any way. Back to back snoozers entrenches us in a spaced-out lull not even one third of the way through.

She comments on her uncoolness in Eldest Daughter. She's not a bad bitch and this isn't savage (nobody says that anymore)... but it really seems like you just tried to do that on like the last two songs, Taylor. The first four lines of this song showcase how out of touch she is - she has no idea what 'cool' is. She has sung about this repeatedly and commented in interviews about how she knows that she isn't 'naturally cool', but her stance here is not as strong as she thinks it is. She is standing defiantly in the face of something nobody's even looking at or cares about because ’cool’ definitely doesn’t mean apathetic or punk or trolling. To me, it reveals a crack in this character that she has crafted and is an exhibit in the case for the arrested development of this 35 year old ‘showgirl’. She is impersonating the normal careful daughter ‘like the rest of us’ (some could even argue that her poor songwriting is part of the act), I can't help but think that achieving such stratospheric fame during a developmental age did not afford her the chance to really mature in the same way as her listeners. She simply is not like you, as much as she's trying to convince you of it. She has had to observe 'normal' from afar over time, and these opening lines reveal a brief but off-center synthesis of such observations. She’s not like an alien or anything - still human, but not aware that she’s not fully honest with herself yet. I know it's an extremely nuanced and kinda weird take, but it was my first thought. Anyway, it's not exactly the point of this song, but it's a dubious start regardless. It’s another Kelce love song that doesn't say anything new or interesting. I'm done pretending to be edgy! I'm just gonna be... me. Ok Taylor whatever how many times are you going to say that. Unintentional hollowness notwithstanding, the track showcases delicate keys and an otherwise heartfelt vocal performance, which is the best so far on the album. Here we see a reversal, where the song itself is superior to her detrimental world-building efforts.

The guitar in Ruin The Friendship sounds completely lost. It's alone at the beginning, has no idea what it's doing, stumbles around drunk, and it simply disappears at random times (like me at some parties). Instrumentation otherwise is produced from the same palette as previous songs: not exactly adventurous, but it is serviceable. Again, not a swiftie here and don't know the lore, but it sounds like she regrets not being a homewrecker. Good on ya, Tay. It seems like she regrets it only because he died though? Makes it pretty weird, but the overfall song still convincingly melancholy, wistful, and romantic. It might be my favorite track so far despite Shellback being confused or high or something. It satisfies the lore-building and the song itself is pretty good. Some might say it was...

Actually Romantic. Now this song sucks. It also leans so hard into its whole joke thing that it gets pretty weird. This song is apparently a dig at Charlie XCX (and therefore all da haterz), who spend a lot of time talkin' shit about her. The whole thing reads like an embarrassing middle-school clapback. Here's the chorus:

But it's actually sweet
All the time you've spent on me
It's honestly wild
All the effort you've put in
It's actually romantic
I really gotta hand it to you, ooh
No man has ever loved me like you do

And she never branches away the bit at all or even expands on it. She just hammers on this 'you're actually just so jealous and you must actually be in love with me' line. It goes so far, in fact, that it turns back onto her like, damn Taylor it's almost like you just wrote a love song about Charlie. And then it goes beyond the pale: In the bridge she says it's making her wet. Taylor I was with you for a little bit on this one, but what the hell are we doing now. What do you mean you're getting wet? Stop it. She's one of those people who does not know how to let a joke die.

The problem here is that I know she really thought she cooked. She thought that pen was on fire. Max and Shellback tried their best to cram a diet pop-punk instrumentation around her bizarre lyrics, and it really fails hard. It is peak cringe. This one should have stayed in the drafts. It adds a little spice to the lore book I guess so there's something for the fandom.

Wish List is boring. Ovaries taking over, it's just a song about 'settling down in the suburbs' and shirking the trappings of celebrity life. A stock pop ballad that you could find on the back half of any run of the mill record these days. Totally forgettable.

We pick up the pace a little bit on Wood, though. Definitely the most bouncy and fun song on the record, it's hard to think she wasn't working with or at least inspired by horny little Sabrina Carpenter (who is an album feature later). The song opens up with a 60s funk guitar riff that is basically exactly the same as "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5. Finally, a song befitting the 'Showgirl' title - it's a danceable bop. It's also the most coherent song lyrically. Lots of lucky device imagery and unabashed penis wordplay. You go, Taylor. It's somehow the most daring song on the album which isn't really saying anything at all because everything up until this point is pretty safe.

And we've made it to CANCELLED! This is seriously an unbearable listen. It is peak Taylor Swift cringe, far beyond anything I've heard from her. Queue that meme of the FBI agent ripping off his headphones in disgust. Line after line, we’re dealing with brutal shit.

Did you girlboss too close to the sun.

Welcome to my underworld where it gets quite dark. (queue jokar makeup)

Did you bring a tiny violin to a knife fight.

The stomping kick and vocal delivery comes straight out of a deleted Nightmare Before Christmas scene.

The book Something Wicked This Way Comes is referenced, and it is about a dark evil carnival, and that’s the energy we get here, intentional or not. It’s got a dark carnival vibe with a Joker “wanna know how I got these scars” chorus. I really can’t get over the “my dark twisted mind 😈” aesthetic though. There’s a lot of secondhand embarrassment on this song.

Honey is another dud. Mind-numbingly formulaic and tame, there is nothing to be said here.

Finally we arrive at the title track The Life Of A Showgirl, opening proudly with some of the most inexcusable bars on the album. Nobody should be using the word ‘legitly’, especially in a song. Many of the lines in this song are bungled piles of words without any semblance of rhythm or musical forethought. Halfway through the song morphs into a Hamilton number with staccato strings and a Lin Manuel Miranda delivery of more unfortunate lines. I guess she’s trying to lean into the Showgirl thing here but it sucks. More millennial cringe, this time about being married to the hustle. Not sure who Kitty is, or if it was there just to fit the rhyme scheme, but it’s probably some lore that hardcore swifties can investigate. Sabrina’s participation here came with strict supervision from Taylor, and it felt like she just popped by to read off some of the lyrics Taylor wrote and then bounced.

Final Thoughts

This Taylor Swift album is rife with unacceptable lyrics and bland, predictable instrumentation. It is also just cringe after cringe. I am still grasping for an explanation and am twisting my mind to make sense of the magnitude of the fandom. I think I have found some solace in the explanation from that New Yorker Article: the fans are not there for the music they are there to escape their own lives by living in the doll house that Taylor crafted.

When a musical artist pushes the boundaries of their craft, it is often done with a unique synergy of influences and genres plus a spark of experimentation and risk taking that finds its way to the mainstream. Chuck Berry and co. blending blues gospel and country to sow the seeds of rock and roll. Nirvana lifting up an underground DIY grunge and metal movement by infusing melodic pop influences, setting us up for a whole new branch of indie music. Kanye West (in spite of his current optics) redefined hip-hop in a similar way. The world is full of music, and we dub musicians who can synthesize a diamond from such chaos as geniuses.

Taylor does not search the world for these influences (although on this particular album there is a loose theme of her either copying or paying homage to pop songs of the past). Her body of work is unique in that all 12 albums are about her. She makes no statement about anything other than herself and her life, and when she does branch out, it shows up as platitudes and cliches. When one artist might “borrow from 80s hair band early 2000s indie pop”, Taylor “blends influences from Red and Lover”. Her body of work is so insular yet so large that she can borrow from it like some perpetual motion machine. The snake eats its own tail but it somehow grows fatter.

My personal feelings about it all (I tried not to let them color the above review):

The weird part about this “universe” is that it’s not like Hogwarts or Marvel, it is a single person’s life. This lends itself to the disturbing celebrity worship seen among her fans and it is what we on the outside see first about it all. It is a weird cult vibe with a “boring barbie” leader who can’t seem to write a truly compelling song. Hardcore Swifties have fallen, hook, line, and sinker, for a billionaire’s campaign to turn her brand into an empire. They are another flavor of Disney adult. It's a huge disappointment to see such passion directed towards this marketing machine, when there are more artists and musicians than ever and they are creating far more compelling art and poetry. There are so many striving to portray beauty (and they are sacrificing their livelihoods for it - emerging acts can not even afford to go on tour) and Taylor Swift, Inc. is instead trying to conquer the world.

I get what I expect from Taylor Swift almost every time. I am seriously unimpressed and underwhelmed (and usually cringing with secondhand embarrassment). With every new album I give an honest, open-minded listen and I am usually left sitting back watching fireworks popping off, wondering why nobody can see that the emperor has no clothes.