I didn’t think the bar for Taylor Swift albums could get any lower than “Tortured Poets Department.” Then she released “The Life of a Showgirl,” and I can’t stop cringing.
I take no pleasure in hating the new album. I’m not one of those cantankerous Gen Xers who lives to tell the youths that music peaked in the ’80s and that there will never be talent like fill-in-the-blank artist who happened to hit the scene just as said critic was coming of age. How serendipitous. On the contrary, as a former so-called Swiftie whose adolescence consisted of belting out Taylor’s lyrics into my karaoke machine and hairbrush and any other vaguely mic-shaped prop I could find, it stinks to watch the once-precocious pop star devolve into musical drivel that’s at best banal and at worst agonizing.
Perhaps the most nagging problem with “Showgirl” is its lyrical trendiness. The whole album feels like a shameless effort to appeal to the growing Gen Z cohort of her fanbase — à la “How do you do, fellow kids?” — as the once-loyal millennials steadily jump ship. As a result, her lyrics have the shelf life of cold cuts. To wit: “We looked fire,” “I’m not a bad b-tch, and this isn’t savage,” “pledge allegiance to your … vibes,” “glad he ghosted me,” “spring break that was f-ckin’ lit” — you get the idea.
Pair that with the elementary rhyme scheme, and you get whatever this is:
Everybody’s so punk on the internet
Everyone’s unbothered ’til they’re not
Every joke’s just trolling and memes
Sad as it seems, apathy is hot
Everybody’s cutthroat in the comments
Every single hot take is cold as ice.
I’d say this is what happens when you start dating a boy with CTE, but Taylor’s writing was basic long before she met Travis Kelce. The problem is, it’s forgivable when you’re a precocious teen. It’s embarrassing when you’re 35 and writing increasingly cringe claptrap for zoomer applause. (Is it just me, or is Taylor’s knack for songwriting Benjamin Buttoning?)
The arrested development is especially problematic considering Taylor’s simultaneous swan dive into hypersexualization. Her “Showgirl” album cover shoot is just the tip of the iceberg. It felt forced when, in 2017, she wrote a song whose sole message was that she “only bought this dress so you could take it off.” Eight years later, it seems just as contrived, except instead of the sexualization creating just one uncomfy track, it pervades and perverts them all. “His love was thе key that opened my thighs” is just one of many such lines that evokes the same feeling as stumbling upon a sex scene while watching a movie with your parents. But it gets worse:
You think I’m tacky, baby
Stop talking dirty to me
It sounded nasty, but it
Feels like you’re flirting with me
I mind my business, God’s my witness that I don’t provoke it
It’s kind of making me wet (Oh)
It’s hard to explain why this comes off as especially disgusting, considering the better part of the pop culturescape makes this G-rated by comparison. But when Cardi B sings about a “WAP,” for instance, it’s gross in an impersonal kind of way. The Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, et al. types made obscenity part of their brands from the get-go. When Taylor Swift sings about WAPs, it feels like walking in on your big sister “doing it.” No thanks. It’s a shame she traded naivety for vulgarity instead of maturity.
While we’re still on the topic, here’s a can’t-miss line from her fourth song, “Father Figure”: “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger.” I’m sorry, what? The song is an apparent reference to her early days in the biz and her bid to buy her long-lost masters back from Scooter Braun. That’s fine, whatever. But do we really need phallic references from the “Love Story” girl?
Maybe I’m also cranky because Taylor gave us this sorry excuse of a song just four months after singer-songwriter and producer Jon Bellion released an awesome album and title track of the same name — a collection of songs that, unlike Taylor’s ditty, ripped nothing off the George Michael hit, and was instead an ode to maturity, masculinity, and parenthood, and a rebuke of the kind of childishness Taylor continues to pursue. I know Taylor Swift isn’t actually reverse autogyniphilic, but somebody really should have told her after “The Man” music video that nobody thinks it’s badass to compete with boys or try to be them or transgressively sing about their, um, undercarriage.
The rest of the album is just tired, a rushed and unoriginal project that feels more like a PR ploy to keep the Kelce engagement buzz buzzing as long as possible. (And sadly, nobody ever taught Taylor the handy mnemonic device for our spelling of “canceled” on this side of the pond. Taylor, if you’re reading this, “Cancel the second ‘L.'” You’re American.)
So speaking for burned-out former Swifties everywhere, we’re sick of quantity. Give us quality. There’s a reason most artists don’t release six albums in six years. It takes time to make good art that lasts.
That’s why you’ll catch millions of us still jamming to “You Belong With Me” two decades later but giving up on “The Life of a Showgirl” after two minutes.