Usually, when Taylor Swift releases a new album, I instantly find a couple of songs that make me feel like she’s been living in my walls (a la those Jews in Brooklyn) for a year, writing lyrics that are specifically about the thoughts and fears and experiences I’ve had and keep hidden so deeply in my heart that not even my brain knows about them yet. As I grow older, different songs have the same impact on me. It makes her music constantly rewarding and surprising: For example, when I first heard “Champagne Problems” from Evermore, I sat on the floor of my shower for thirty minutes, crying as I remembered breaking up with my college boyfriend. Earlier this year, I had the same reaction to “Cowboy Like Me.”
Yesterday, I listened to a bootleg leak of her new album, The Life of a Showgirl (I have no ethical qualms about this. I have ethical qualms about things that matter). I hated it - and not in the way that I hated things like The Idea of You starring Anne Hathaway and that gay guy or 90% of the new musicals on Broadway, where I can at least find good parts and can enjoy it on a gummy. I hated it because it could have been so good, and instead, it was boring, shallow, and embraced her Capitalist Barbie persona that many “haters” coined during The Eras Tour. I hated it because it sounded like Connor4Real’s album in Popstar, except one was created in a mockumentary, and the other described by one of the biggest pop stars in history as a “self portrait.” She created a perfect parody album by a billionaire pop star — except, as has been the case with Taylor her entire career, it was in earnest.
The lyrics are cheap and unrelatable, and instead of embracing storytelling and fiction to connect with her fans, she’s incredibly literal. People can relate to the lyrics “because I dropped your hand while dancing / Left you out there standing / Crestfallen on the landing / Champagne problems” (here, she even points at the fact if these are your biggest problems, you are privileged. She’s in on it all with us) because we both empathize with the feelings and aren’t given an explicit story to imagine. We can’t relate to liking your friends “cloaked in Gucci” or staying at five star hotels in Portofino, nor can we imagine what that’s like, because she doesn’t say anything that encourages us to dream. And when she’s not name dropping brands or places, the lyrics still are childish and boring (“her name is Kitty / made her money by being pretty and witty / they gave her keys to this city” is something I could have written while high at intermission of BOOP the Musical).
I think Taylor is unsure of what to write about now that she has achieved what so much of her music is about: She’s engaged, she’s happy, she’s living in a big ole’ city. Because of that, she’s copying other artists: “WOOD” is clearly her attempt at the phenomenal sexual humor Sabrina Carpenter uses in her music. “Actually Romantic,” her sorry attempt at a “diss track” (more on this in the next paragraph) is her attempt at capturing her own genius in Bad Blood and Mean, except we don’t empathize with her victimhood anymore because she isn’t one.
I was most disappointed by the gender dynamics of this album. In “The Fate of Ophelia,” she sings about being saved by a man from Ophelia’s fate. I am not sure which copy of Hamlet Taylor has, but it is certainly not the same one as me. Writing an entire song about living “rent free” in Charli xcx’s head, instead of working it out on the remix as Lorde did, is childish and boring. Wanting to settle down, get married, and have a family instead of being a mega pop star is fine, but writing an entire song about it when the Trump administration is ruling back civil rights and liberties daily is not just stupid, it’s irresponsible.
I have no problem with Taylor Swift being horny and in love. Good for her. However, I do have a problem when that leads to an entire album about being saved by men, wanting tradwife values, and hating the women who compete with you. It’s sad! It’s disappointing! For the first time, I feel myself diverging from her: As I get more interested in how to decenter men from my world, Swift gets more entangled in them.
I could keep this going for pages - I didn’t even touch on the fact that there is nothing remotely “showgirl” about this album! However, for my own sanity, I will stop. Xo.