Cait Mckinzie
As a longtime Taylor Swift fan, I struggled to write this review — not just because of the crushing overload of classes, world events to keep up with and other responsibilities — but because quite simply, finding time to review “The Life of a Showgirl” felt almost as inconsequential as the album itself.
Merely a year and a half after Swift’s monster 31-track album “The Tortured Poets Department,” she announced “The Life of a Showgirl” Aug. 13 on her fiance Travis Kelce’s podcast “New Heights.”
The first album since 2017’s “Reputation” to be produced with Max Martin and Shellback, pre-album press promised an infectious pop album with catchy melodies and the same lyrical storytelling as “Folklore,” one of Swift’s 2020 folk-pop albums often considered her most lyrically profound.
Unfortunately, “The Life of a Showgirl” disappoints on both promises.
I was skeptical going into the album release. I am a huge fan of Swift’s pop albums, but I also value her lyrics as the most important part of her artistic package. Between the halfway-completed and then abandoned “Taylor’s Version” project when Swift acquired her master recordings, “The Tortured Poets Department” and The Eras Tour, it felt like audiences and listeners were already speeding toward being all too over it.
Wary of the commercialism in releasing six album variants of the same 12 tracks on vinyl, a movie-theater listening party release, as well as what felt like a rushed album development process, I kept expectations for “The Life of a Showgirl” quite low.
I guess, in a way, the album exceeded my expectations, but that is purely because they were so incredibly low.
The strongest track on the album is, by far, “The Fate of Ophelia.” The song actually delivers on strong lyricism but fails on the “dance pop” promises. This album does not feel produced by the same people behind “1989,” “Reputation” and parts of “Red.” It feels completely irrelevant.
My largest issue with the new album is that I simply cannot grasp the aesthetic. Swift said in pre-release press that she was attempting to recreate the feeling and pride she felt during The Eras Tour.
I could have understood and gotten on board with an album focusing on the behind-the-scenes excitement or exhaustion of the tour, or an album about the weight of fame or the glittering sparkly life of dancing and singing on stage.
Instead, what Swift delivered is a jumbled mess of 12 songs, some that are uncharacteristically raunchy, including “Wood,” which has the catchiest tune but also the worst lyrics out of the entire album and potentially her entire discography in the form of “New Heights of manhood.”
I’m all for personal truth and intimate storytelling in the form of song, but coming from Swift, who has written about love in such deep and profound ballads such as “You Are In Love,” “Daylight” and “Call It What You Want,” such thinly veiled sexual innuendos feel cheap and out of place.
The album also cuts all over the place, addressing rumored decade-old beef with Charli XCX in “Actually Romantic.” She then reminisces about a devastating teenage love in “Ruin the Friendship,” which feels out of place and dampening mid-album and alluding to other metaphor-heavy situations in “Father Figure” and “CANCELLED!”
It seems that if the album is not directly shoving Travis Kelce, the life she wants to have with him and other parts of their romance in the audience’s faces, the situations mentioned are almost incomprehensible.
One of the reasons why I love Swift so much is how applicable her songs are to almost any situation. After listening to the whole album multiple times, I couldn’t really find many songs or allusions that bear her usual relatability.
That would be OK if she was writing about the isolation of being a pop star or the grandeur of The Eras Tour; however, her concepts in songs, including on “Honey,” “Wi$h Li$t” and “Opalite,” show that she is still attempting to be relatable.
There is no sonic through-line, nothing groundbreaking in terms of lyrics or beats. This album simply exists for me. It doesn’t necessarily detract from her discography, but it certainly doesn’t add anything to it.
The references steeped into this album already feel antiquated and dated, and from a lyricist who has written songs that have an almost-timeless staying power, songs like “CANCELLED!” and “Eldest Daughter” just feel petty and like they are already outrunning their shelf lives.
The only songs on the album that feel connected to the billed aesthetic is the old Hollywood glamour of “Elizabeth Taylor” and the title track, “The Life of a Showgirl,” featuring fellow singer Sabrina Carpenter. While it doesn’t live up lyrically, “The Life of a Showgirl” does feel like a nice tribute to fans from two women who became famous at a young age. It would have done well as a standalone single.
Every time I convince myself that I like the album even a little bit, my shuffle on Spotify turns to an older Swift song and simply makes me miss the talent in her older works.
So many of Swift’s albums have come from places of having an almost desperate need to say something, whether that be about the aches and pains of the teenage years, the blinding delirium of being completely in love, the sting of a first heartbreak, or the complicated tangle of navigating human hurt. However, “The Life of a Showgirl” simply feels like it has nothing to say and, in consequence, seems to have too much to prove.
Reach Allie Seibel at entertainment@collegian.com or on social media @allie_seibel_.