The Life of a Showgirl

Taylor Swift

Sylvia Wessberg

After finishing the most successful world tour in history, Taylor Swift announced “The Life of A Showgirl,” her 12th studio album. Based on the title and the fact she spent nearly two years on tour, I assumed this would be an album about her experience having that bright a spotlight on her. Instead the album seems to be more about her new fiance, and his dick? And hers too?

As a fan of Taylor Swift since I was six years old, I really never thought I’d hear her say the words, “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger.” But it's sung in the chorus of “Father Figure,” which starts off a theme for this album of her trying to catch attention with her lyrics, rather than writing something worth attention. This is continued in the song “Wood,” with the lyrics, “Redwood tree, it ain't hard to see / His love was the key that opened my thighs.” Taylor has been writing love songs for over 20 years, but when she finds her husband, she writes about his “new heights of manhood...” and makes an album that lacks even one heartfelt sounding love song. When lyrics like “I'm not a bad bitch / And this isn't savage / But I'm never gonna let you down,” are put next to any lyric from her past works, they’re honestly laughable. 

After achieving a level of success that no other female artist in history has achieved—thanks to her fanbase which is predominantly young girls—-she focuses on her haters, and made an album that a lot of young girls probably won’t be allowed to listen to. My 11-year-old sister and I listen to Taylor Swift every time she gets in my car, and “Wood” will not be the song I choose for us to sing along to. 

Taylor Swift has always had haters, and she always will. She gets criticized for her songs sounding the same, only writing songs about the men in her life, and simply being too popular and over played. What fans always use to combat these claims is that she is an amazing lyricist, but I don’t think this argument can really be made anymore. Taylor has gone from writing, “Past me, I want to tell you not to get lost in these petty things. Your nemesis will defeat themselves before you get the chance to swing,” to writing a diss track about Charli XCX with the lyrics, “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave.” It's like a fall from grace. She doesn’t sound clever, she sounds jaded and cringey. 

The poor quality of this album feels like an uninspired money grab, and after being a fan for the majority of my life, it's so disappointing. It showed me a new side of Taylor that is not an artist I like very much, and has made it hard to defend her when she’s become almost everything she’s always been accused of being.