The Taylor Swift Discussion You Didn't Ask For

AKA an attempt to be critical without getting murdered.

(paid post because I’m scared of white girls with a vendetta)

Like the entire mayonnaise corridor of the internet, I was waiting around for the release of Taylor Swift’s twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.

I was excited for a few reasons - one, because Max Martin and Shellback hadn’t produced/written with Taylor since reputation and that album is wall to wall hits. Two, because Taylor had discussed it was going to reflect her life during the Eras tour, which was according to her the most amazing time of her life. So I was gearing up for a sonic blast.

Let’s get one thing clear. Taylor and I go way back. I first heard “Teardrops On My Guitar” around the time it came out in 2007 and thought it was a beautiful encapsulation of a very specific feeling.¹ Not only were we vacationing on the same Jersey Shore barrier island around the same time in the 2000s,² but I saw her live in the Fearless tour in 2009. She performed at Mohegan Sun with Kellie Pickler and Gloriana. Wild stuff. Pictured below - 19 year old Taylor and so. Many. Screaming. Tweens.

Despite these credentials, I wouldn’t classify myself as a Swiftie per se. I don’t have the time to decode riddles because I have to go to work. The way she (and other billionaires) gobble up resources for the sake of a private plane is a climate disaster.³ I think some of her oeuvre can dip into white mean girl territory. And I do not buy her albums anymore because I find the variants on top of variants a naked money grubbing scheme and an ideal example of constant, exhausting production in late stage capitalism.⁴ I don’t get excited as much about a new Swift release - I get a sense that she needs to take a nap.

I don’t think Taylor Swift is the Messiah of pop music. I don’t screech when she announces something new - unlike, say, in May, when Fiona Apple suddenly dropped a single calling attention to women experiencing pretrial incarceration and I nearly had a heart attack. New album WHEN, Fiona?!

I also would argue Swift hasn’t lived a normal life since she was 15, which probably turns your brain into something akin to a frozen turkey. Her music captures pain of adolescence incredibly well. She nails the specificity of girlhood, in a way very few artists can.

My slightly spicy take is that the reason women (aka WHYTE women) aren’t relating as much to Life of a Showgirl is that on this album, Taylor is stretching beyond girlhood. For someone who made her livelihood about easily digestible heterosexual love stories, a song exalting Travis Kelce’s penis might be a bridge too far. And I don’t hate that for her! Make all the songs about how you’re getting that good good! But I’m examining why the reaction to this album is so wildly disparate. Some reviews say it’s up there with her best work - some demand it go in the garbage.

Taylor’s viewpoint is outgrowing the desire of her fans to be the Lost Boys in Neverland - hell, Taylor sings about Peter Pan all the time and has a song called "Never Grow Up.". She bottles up nostalgia, yearning, and the myth of high school so well - and now she’s 35. She has to do something different. And her fans, the ones who scream along to lyrics about Harry Styles abandoning her on a boat…they don’t quite know what to do now that she’s trying to be an adult.

Also let’s be clear here - Swift nails white, cishet girlhood. If you want another lens through which to see things, there are multiple other artists to appreciate.

All of this aside: there I was at 5AM, formula warming, holding my baby, ready for, as Taylor and Travis promised on New Heights, “bangers.”

If we are keeping it fully 100 here (and we try to do that all the time), The Life of a Showgirl is not ‘bangers.’ It is BOPS. Those are two very different classifications. “Cruel Summer” and “Out of the Woods” and “I Did Something Bad” are bangers.

When Showgirl is good, it’s really good. I would argue “Fate of Ophelia” is the strongest first single she’s put out in a minute and easily outshines anything on Tortured Poets Department - an album I really, really don’t like.

I’ve been singing that one and “Opalite” to my kid while I change diapers. They are the ear-wormiest of the earworms. “Eldest Daughter” made me teary. “Father Figure” is basically Logan Roy abusing Kendall for three minutes over a George Michael sample. And yes, “Wood” is very catchy despite the lyrics crossing the line from sassy into stupid.

My main takeaway from the album is that it is mis-characterized and should not have been called The Life of a Showgirl. This album is not about being a showgirl, otherwise there would be more fast-paced songs to can-can to. It’s about being a Shakespearean character rescued from the shackles of her own mind. And that includes “Wood” because nobody does a dick joke like Shakespeare. I will repeat here something I said to one of my best friends and certified Swiftie academic, Chelsea - Taylor was quite clearly inspired by Sabrina Carpenter in some of her lyrical witticisms, but the unfortunate thing is Taylor is too earnest to make the jokes land. Sabrina is hilarious and it’s effortless.⁵ Some of Taylor’s attempts at the same sort of thing come off as effortful.

So here are my notes on The Life of a Showgirl and responses to some of the thick as mud discourse. These notes will only be about the most scorching takes I’ve seen about the album, because let’s be honest - this is already way too long of a post. I’m also not even going to bother dipping my toe into the accusations of Taylor’s misogynoir because, let’s be totally real here - I am not about to argue with ANY Black women about their experiences with any white woman, famous or not. White women are the worst.