Taylor Swift for ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ (Courtesy of Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott)
Rhett Kaya: From internet trends to the latest pop album, there is always something CU Boulder students are obsessing over, opinionated about or adding to their vernacular. The Culture Critic will keep you up to date with the latest in entertainment and popular culture through content reviews, analysis and my self-proclaimed professional opinion.
After 11 diaristic albums, Taylor Swift has promised to pull back The Eras Tour curtain for a behind-the-scenes look via her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” But rather than post-show struggles or stageside revelations, Swift seems more interested in flashing her already public successes, including her wealth, fame and relationship.
For a large portion of her career, Swift has sold us on the illusion that she’s not like other celebrities. While Swift’s public appearances at award shows and hot New York City restaurants mirror the glamour and performance of her pop contemporaries, her albums function as a conduit to her fans, akin to a note from the girl sitting next to you in first-period English class. “The Life of a Showgirl” swiftly shatters this illusion. The record’s lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” attempts to recreate the magic of Swift’s early hit, “Love Story,” by similarly twisting the ending of a Shakespearean classic. However, words like “megaphone,” “team” and “vibes” remind us that Swift is no longer the girl next door but instead a billionaire pop star dating one of the country’s biggest NFL stars, Travis Kelce.
On “Wi$h Li$t,” Swift lulls over all the material items that an undefined “they” desire before the chorus hits, in which she claims, “I just want you / Have a couple kids, got the whole block lookin’ like you / We tell the world to leave us the f— alone, and they do.” What is intended to be an endearing love song is overshadowed by the fact that Swift has enough money to comfortably renounce it all for the sake of romance. She’s asking us to believe she wants a secluded, humble lifestyle, as if she didn’t share her engagement photos on Instagram after using Kelce’s podcast to promote this very album.
“Father Figure,” the strongest song on the record, thrives on an enclosed narrative in which an industry elite details a slimy power imbalance between them and a protégé. Swift fans can, and have, pieced together the likely subject of the song, but coating the track in a fictional mafia overlay allows the listener to dive into a singular story without explicit references to Swift’s real life pervading the listening experience.
The dichotomy between the Swift we’ve come to know through her music and the celebrity pumping out countless vinyl and CD variants is especially evident on “Actually Romantic,” an alleged diss to hyperpop sensation Charli XCX. With a stinging Olivia Rodrigo-esque beat, Swift successfully twists a foe’s scorn into flattery, begging her opponent to “stop talking dirty” to her. In 2014, it was easy to separate “Bad Blood” from its subject, Katy Perry, and the surrounding drama between the pop pair, but twelve albums in, Swift’s perhaps vindictive nature pervades the narrative she wants us to believe; thus, “Actually Romantic” feels more like a punch down than a clap-back.
A few tracks later comes “Wood,” a ’70s-fueled disco track full of double entendres and Sabrina Carpenter-style vulgarities. Rather than inserting her life or relationship into a fictional narrative taking place in high school or a fairy tale, Swift flaunts her relationship with zero reservations — podcast references, and all. Underneath the raunchiness and redwood tree comparisons comes Swift’s realization that the perfect relationship requires none of the dreaming, pining or superstitious star wishing that’s decorated her past 11 albums. What “Wood” lacks in verbosity, it makes up for in certainty, perhaps indicating a broader thesis for the record: sometimes, the healthiest relationships are the least poetic.
Then comes “CANCELLED,” a wannabe “Reputation” song that fails to inform listeners of its true intentions. Again, the Swift we’ve come to know through her sonic universe is likely critiquing the way the public scrutinizes women, evident through references to witch hunts and “girlboss feminism,” but the use of such an ambiguous and loaded term, “cancelled,” with no accompanying specificity, feels like a rare misfire from the usually sharp songwriter.
Swift finally divulges specifics of the showgirl lifestyle on the album’s closer and title track, “The Life of a Showgirl,” in which she employs a fictional character, Kitty, and a Sabrina Carpenter feature that, while appropriate, might have been more effective on “Wood,” given Carpenter’s humorous nature. Through the pair’s descriptions of the hustle and bustle required of showgirl’s past, present and future, for the first time on the record, Swift sheds her attempted relatability in favor of honesty as she boasts, “I’m immortal now, baby dolls / I couldn’t if I tried.”
After airing out her grievances and miseries on the gargantuan THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, Swift attempts a more precise package in “The Life of a Showgirl.” However, “Showgirl’s” 12 tracks meander with seemingly various goals that often distract from any sign of a throughline. Still, a reunion with producer duo Max Martin and Shellback exhibits promising returns, including the thrashing “Elizabeth Taylor” and the shimmering “Opalite.”
One of Swift’s goals in crafting this record was to be as proud of it as she was of The Eras Tour, making the worldwide sensation’s omission from the record all the more puzzling. If The Eras Tour was a celebration of Swift’s first 11 albums, “The Life of a Showgirl” is a troubling indication of an inability to move on. There are bits and pieces of every Swift record scattered across “Showgirl, ” but the singer shines the most on this record when she embraces not the Swift we’ve come to love from the past, but the mega-famous celebrity we know now.
Contact CU Independent Opinion Editor Rhett Kaya at rhett.kaya@colorado.edu
