Taylor Swift's dick is bigger

I am the archetype of Taylor Swift’s beautiful nightmare: I cannot stop talking about her. I’ve never written about her publicly before, but my increasing nihilism has manifested now in a bold, Swiftian confidence to swing my appendage (pen) RE: The Life of a Showgirl. Despite my lengthiest critiques of her celebrity, Taylor still has an Orwellian ability to inspire me. Even taking a look at my last few sentences, I almost cringe. Did you hear my covert narcissism / I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman? (“Anti-Hero”, Midnights, Taylor Swift)

Well - it seems like our antihero is done disguising anything at all. From her opalescent love story with Travis Kelce and unabashed pride for reclaiming her masters, to championing her apparent cancelled status and aforementioned Kelce’s undercarriage (ugh). I’ve listened to The Life of a Showgirl a few times now. Typically, my mind changes about music a good billion times in the first month of an album’s life. But I’ve decided to go ahead and capture my first impression in blogger’s amber: “all my [fake] diamonds and [opinions] are [not] forever” (“Elizabeth Taylor”, The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift).

First, because I’m a sweetie and a lover, an overview of the songs I liked:

• The Fate of Ophelia - I don’t love the melody/vocal style in the verses, but I love the pre-chorus & chorus (and post-chorus?) The “keep it 100” line would have slid on by no problem for me, if it weren’t directly followed up by “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes”. For this reason, I can’t sing along out loud to the song. But I can listen to it quietly and enjoy the sounds/rhythm.

• Elizabeth Taylor - This song goes hard. I love the production and line delivery. I even love the little moan in place of the word “you” in the chorus. I love the song’s main imagery, “Cry my eyes violet, Elizabeth Taylor”. I find the refrain gripping and glamorous in essence, even if only scratching the surface of its main character. The lyrics in this song overall have minimal cringe and for that I am grateful.

• Opalite - This song is pure glimmer, loveliness, joy. It sounds like a Christmas song to me, but it works. I think it’s well-written Taylor pop.

• Father Figure - I was pleasantly surprised by this one. She balances vengeance, pride, pain, and ego well in this song. The switch in the back half of the song feels earned, especially with the years-long public effort to buy back her masters. Father Figure features folklore/evermore style storytelling met with her Midnights/post-Eras Tour relaxed confidence. It feels tonally inventive without sacrificing clean structure. I also love her voice on this track.

• Ruin the Friendship - The light, floaty refrain is addictive. Reminds me of Fearless era Taylor (in which I fell in love with her music). Also makes me cry! The Cancer in me loves the nostalgic, reflective side of her on this track. I will say: dedicating an entire song to a high school friend with a girlfriend that Taylor wished she kissed without consent (“It wasn’t an invitation… should’ve kissed you anyway”, Ruin the Friendship) is weird. Kinda can’t believe it made it to the final cut (feels like a Vault track), but I am doing my best to practice gratitude.

• Honey - This is sweet, vulnerable, written simply (well). I love all the background vocals sprinkled throughout. I also love her vocal performance overall. The melody is perfect, the drums are so clean, and the piano has me swooning (a standout track among otherwise middle of the road Max/Shellback production!)

  
  

Now, let’s touch on song purgatory… songs that haven’t quite met judgement day.

• Actually Romantic - Controversial!!! I’m a Charli girl since 2014 so don’t even start writing that comment. I have to be honest - I like this song. I like the melody, I think it’s funny, and her voice sounds good on it. The verses aren’t perfect, but I think if it were written about anyone else, or even obfuscated to universalize it a bit, we’d all like it! (Reach) Obviously, the context of it being in response to “Sympathy is a knife” on some level ruins it for me. I try to imagine there’s more to the story, but given that we as the listening public have very little to go off of and this is one of the tracks included on a notably short (12-track) album… it just comes off mean girl. :\ Side note: I heard someone mention that Chappell did the concept first (“My Kink Is Karma”) and they were right!

• Wi$h Li$t - Okay, I am getting on my liberal arts degree soap box for a minute. Is the song catchy and cute? Sure. Does it piss me off? YEAH!! I don’t like the messaging here! What, like having life and career goals are out of style now? What happened to having it all? Let me also add: this song is being sung by Taylor… Swift… deeply successful mega pop star BILLIONAIRE? Her singing this song sounds like a sarcastic joke to me. A man (Travis Kelce) is CLEARLY not the only thing on her wish list. Nor should it be!!! Did she not just sing about being a Father Figure with a huge dick a few tracks ago…? I don’t know, white women contain multitudes I guess. But in an increasingly misogynistic, homophobic, patriarchal cultural landscape, I can’t get past it. It’s a skip for me. Guys I think we need to bring back girlboss feminism…

• Wood - Not gonna lie, I don’t hate it. I think the Jackson 5 interpolation is silly in a good way—though I’m confused by the lack of writing credits. (I’ve seen many Black creators call Taylor out for her exploitation of Black music and her lyrical microaggressions, so that’s important to acknowledge here.) The chorus is fun and vocal delivery is infectious. But she overdid the metaphor. Again… a whole spot on the short 12-track album given to this?!?! All the sex of her past must have been TRASH…

• The Life of a Showgirl - One of the only few songs that feel on theme, and it’s literally the title track. It’s the anchor of the album and yet it’s a duet where Sabrina outshines Taylor with her gorgeous pop-country vocals. It’s overall a little boring/deflated, written & produced in a One Direction Made In The A.M. style campfire cadence. Just disappointing - I hoped for something either way bigger and more glitzy or something much more vulnerable and singular.

  
  

Songs I DO NOT LIKE:

• Eldest Daughter - Ugh. The verses are SOOOO bad??? It’s confounding to me? I also can’t take the chorus seriously. The melody is so good and I like the general idea but holy shit, was this her first pass? Could she not have kept this one in the incubator for a few more weeks? This is a Track 5!!! Could she have done any form of soul-searching for this? For reference, past Track 5’s include but are not limited to: “The Archer”, “my tears ricochet”, “Dear John”, “You’re On Your Own, Kid”, “Delicate”… Please. Please!!!! This is also the song with the microaggressions I mentioned earlier. I’m not a bad bitch, and this isn’t savage… you bet your ass you’re not, lol.

• CANCELLED! - I don’t even want to talk about it. Lyrics are bad, vibe is bad, she sounds like she’s snickering. It’s like that awful Vigilante Shit lyric “draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man” but as a whole song. It’s not even that I’m against the messaging of we’re all fucked up, we love each other anyway — I’ve recently been The Morning Show-pilled and can kind of rock with that. But a) this song is tone deaf to true, valid criticism RE: private jet use & no political backbone after boasting a political awakening and b) she is, again, the most successful and famous she’s ever been… there is no underdog story here. This woman is the forever victim, she cannot read a room, and I’ve realized I need to accept that already.

  
  

So, I clearly didn’t hate this album. But as I get into my overall thoughts, let me make a distinction. The truth is, I didn’t dislike this collection of songs. But I did, in fact, dislike this album. It lacked the thematic cohesion I was expecting; it doesn’t have an overall thesis that’s clear to me other than “Haha I’m Taylor Swift, fuck you guys”. Anyway, I much prefer the angrier “Yeah I’m Taylor Swift, fuck you guys” energy of Reputation. Musically, there’s a lot of clean, catchy pop, but it doesn’t sound like Max Martin or Shellback at their best. Vocally, Taylor is barely trying most of the time. She falls back on this basic vocal flip where she scales a note up halfway on so many songs (think of the way she sings the words wrong or home on the chorus of “Honey”), which I find annoying. Lyrically, I’m two-thirds bored and one-third horrified. The lack of Taylor’s usual introspection or true cleverness is jarring.

But I can’t be surprised. Taylor’s been aligning herself with the NFL, outdoing herself with vinyl variant sales, continuing to jet-set at a clinical frequency, and has settled into being a music cyclone who’s finally gotten what she wanted (those masters, a man). I mean really, this album begs the question, what is left? I keep hearing the argument that Taylor is just having fun now, doing her thing! She’s finally happy! To that I say: Taylor is not your friend. She’s not some (actually) tortured artist overcoming trauma who has finally found the light. Even if that were true, I think back to Ariana Grande’s Sweetener (2018), a bright and imaginative album following the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, as evidence of what that can look like.

To be fair, Taylor is also not my friend. I have to remind myself that pretty much since Midnights (2022), Taylor Swift is a business. And as a business, she is excellent. Taylor Swift Enterprises is doing everything exactly right to reach the masses and drive profit: the pre-release album sales, the AMC theatrical release of would-be free YouTube content, her reflection of the current (conservative, relentlessly capitalist) culture. I’m simply not the market audience for this product, The Life of a Showgirl. In fact, the theme I was so missing in the actual content of this work can instead be found in the rollout itself. The “life” of a “showgirl” has been reimagined here as a form of performance capital (AKA my reimagined word for poisoned performance art). The marketing campaign built around her unsubstantial idea of humor and tradwife nouveau attitude coupled with the worst music she’s released in her career thus far is the product. Miss Swift is ultimately training us to expect less art, more performance.

On folklore’s “Mirrorball”, Taylor sings, All I do is try, try, try. This sentiment is what has compelled me most to her work. On Showgirl, it feels like she did not not not. But she clearly doesn’t need to.