For a girl like me, the concurrence of a breakup and new Taylor Swift album dropping is like Halloween falling on a Friday: rare, exhilarating, and a call to action. The end of any relationship, however devastating, has a silver lining when at least one party knows that, if they can only make it to the weekend, they will be rewarded with a new release from pop music’s most notorious romantic philosopher.
I made plans with a friend—the biggest Swiftie I know—to listen to The Life of a Showgirl the evening of its release. I was optimistic, perhaps foolishly, that the album would guide me through a sea of conflicting emotions: the anger of Red, the nostalgia of folklore, and the unparalleled catharsis of Reputation. Instead, as I walked into her suite, I was greeted by the album’s second track, so corny it was haunting: Swift sing-speaking “Elizabeth Taylor,” a lyrical soup of offhand allusions to the glamorous Hollywood star she tries, and fails, to embody.
“Elizabeth Taylor,” like most of the album, is catchy. Very catchy, despite—or perhaps because of—how annoying it is. The constant refrain of the song’s title is redundant and tiresome, but the true disappointment of this track is its blatancy. For an artist well known for her “easter eggs,” trails of hints for fans to decode, Swift seems here to get almost . . . lazy? Mentions of Cartier, diamonds, Hollywood, and “NY” attempt to nod to Swift’s subject; instead, like the six times she sings Elizabeth Taylor’s full name in a three-and-a-half-minute song, they hit the listener over the head. One lyric that does work is the description of Swift “crying eyes violet,” a nod to Elizabeth Taylor’s famously purple-appearing eyes. The shedding of tears being a transformative action, one with the power to change its agent’s identity, is a powerful one; in this line, Swift suggests the power of tears in a clever and subtle manner, one missing from the rest of the song.
Sitting on my friend’s bedroom floor, I hoped that the album would grow on me, as Swift’s new releases so often do. I searched for a kernel of wisdom, hoping to hear one of those poignant lyrics, like “Please don’t ever become a stranger / whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.” Instead, I heard “Opalite,” in which Swift relays important advice from her mother: to “make your own sunshine.” Right.
“Eldest Daughter,” as a title, sounded promising to me. Swift has proven herself to be capable of heartwrenching reflections on the female experience, as in folklore’s “mad woman,” where she discusses the often feminine burden of repressing one’s emotions to avoid appearing “crazy” or “angry.” The subject of an eldest daughter is rich with thematic possibilities: feeling unduly responsible for others, a tense relationship with a parental figure, and pressure to meet and exceed expectations, to name a few. And there are moments where Swift’s songwriting mastery does shine—for example, when she writes, “I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness.” Here we see a glimmer of the “English teacher” she claimed to be on Instagram a few weeks ago, but the glimmer is just that, and disappears when she introduces such millennial diction as, “I’m not a bad bitch / and this isn’t savage.” Some say this is an ironic lyric, purposefully leaning into once-trendy, now-cringey language; I say they are wrong. Even more offensive are the lines “Every joke’s just trolling and memes” and “Every single hot take is cold as ice.” Self-aware or not, “Eldest Daughter” is a painful listen. While trying to cheekily nod to the online lexicon of the current moment, Swift gets so caught up in it that any irony fails to come through and any intelligent reflections get lost among the more memorable out-of-touch lyrics.
Swift is known for her “eras,” evident in the distinct styles and themes of the albums in her discography. Her songs become a capsule for particular cultural moments and phases of her life. But, historically, something about them endures. While albums like Red or 1989 are timely, specific to a particular phase of Swift’s artistic development, their lyrics, musical construction, and themes have remained pertinent and powerful in the years since their release. The Life of a Showgirl, attempting to look back on Swift’s entire career, is too specific—it embraces with such conviction this particular era that it misses out on accessing the universal emotional experiences that make so much of Swift’s work timeless.
This specificity—or rather, narrowness—is also apparent in the album’s musical themes. Swift’s songs, in typical pop and country fashion, often include melodies centered around only a few notes; this musical stasis is what makes the music catchy. However, The Life of a Showgirl is simplistic to the extreme, with few memorable melodies, and even fewer that exhibit real musical maturity. The lovely, lilting vocal lines of songs like “Breathe,” “mirrorball,” and “State of Grace” are nowhere to be found—Swift, instead of the masterful songwriting and captivating vocals she is capable of, has served listeners an album of forgettable tracks.
Critics and fans have touted Swift’s new album as a poignant reflection on her rise to fame, her various “eras,” and her struggle with the weight of stardom. Perhaps, though, it is that very stardom that prevents her newer music from communicating, lyrically and musically, ideas that audiences relate to. “Wi$h Li$t,” meant to contrast glitzy and superficial desires with what Swift really wants—a quiet, domestic family life—feels particularly out of touch when one considers its author’s net worth, a whopping $1.6 billion. While fame and fortune don’t necessarily obscure access to emotional truths, The Life of a Showgirl certainly shows no sign of them. If this album is truly a representation of the effects of wealth on an artist, musicians hoping for Swift’s level of success should tread carefully.
Admittedly, The Life of a Showgirl has been stuck in my head for the past few weeks; I’ve found myself muttering, almost involuntarily, “Elizabeth Taylor” to myself around my suite. This album has the potential to occupy space in my heart, perhaps on a getting-ready playlist or as a palate cleanser after listening to the new Maisie Peters EP, which is profoundly devastating. Swift’s more upbeat albums, like Lover and Fearless, are incredibly special to me—a collection of music with the same amount of pure, unadulterated joy as either of those works would have certainly become the soundtrack for my newly-single Fall. The Life of a Showgirl, though, at least for now, is a skip.
My suitemate’s little sister says that “Taylor will for sure go crazy for album thirteen.” I pray she’s right.
