Joyful, Playful, and A Little Stuck

The Life of a Showgirl is great for Taylor Swift the person. What about the artist?

I went to bed Thursday night with Christmas Eve levels of anticipation. There’s nothing quite like knowing you’ll get to experience new work from one of your favorite artists. I love the hope and excitement and unknown of it all.

I also love the reckoning with the art. I enjoy wrestling with it, examining both it and my own reaction to it with each consecutive listen. It was lovely of Taylor to give us a shorter album this time; I had listened through front to back three times before 10am on Friday morning. Only by the third spin did I start to settle into my assessment. I’m a processor; I like to sit with something that means so much to me before I toss off a hot take. A few more days, many more listens, and some wonderful conversations with other fans of Taylor are under my belt now. Mine is almost certainly not the first Showgirl review you’ve read, but I hope we can get to some interesting discussion together.

The Start of An Age

Let me start by saying clearly: I like this album. It’s fun. It’s joyful. It’s funny. It’s a sunshine album, perfect for a car ride with the windows open or for dancing in your kitchen while you make dinner.

Taylor is clever and funny and exuberant here. The tone is a 180 from The Tortured Poets Department. The songs are bops and have been (pleasantly) stuck in my head all weekend. I love that she continues to use color in such vivid ways (“Opalite” is my favorite so far). There is connective tissue to all her previous eras if you look for it.

It’s clear to Swifties of any duration — including those who have been with her from the start, like me — that she is happier than she has been in quite a while, if ever. I’m delighted for her. For someone who has brought so much joy to others and to me through her work, I wish her only the best.

Even if the best for Taylor comes at some expense to her art. Which, at least right now, I think it does.

It’s the Worst Men That I Write Best

I hate saying that. I really do. Taylor herself has been open about her fears that happiness would make her a lesser songwriter. For what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s lost her juice. I think she needs a break and, controversially, that Travis isn’t her best muse.

She wrote this album in between shows of an enormous, exhausting tour, as well as rerecording and rereleasing two decades of albums. She’s always been a hard worker, but this ups the level of intensity even for her. In the words of one of my best friends after Showgirl was announced, “Girl, we are good.” Take a minute (or a few years) for yourself. I think it would serve her well to do so. I hope she does after this album.¹

Taylor wrote in the album introduction for TTPD that she writes the worst men the best. We know her skill there. Some of her most indelible hits and best writing have come from her heartbreaks. While plenty of artists write beautiful love songs — including Taylor! — many also find the most inspiration in pain. Pain has been a vehicle for great art since the beginning of art. It’s not fair, but it’s true. Stable, happy relationships make for boring songwriting. As my husband said on our third listen, “No one wants a song about spending your Friday night watching Netflix and eating takeout.” True. And yet, I think “Wi$h Li$t” tells us that some nights like that are (a beautiful) part of what she wants.

What I hear in these songs is happiness, yes, but also the simplicity of the early part of a relationship. At least when she was writing these songs, it doesn’t seem they had yet exited a honeymoon phase. They are lovely songs and indicate a relatively healthier attachment style than we’ve seen from her in past music. But, there’s not much tension.

While I don’t want the whole of the internet to come for me, my hottest take isn’t that these songs are boring. My hottest take is that there’s not much here about Travis the person. She writes about the life she wants with him. She writes about how happy she is to be chosen. She writes about their great sex life. She doesn’t write a lot about him.

To be fair, that’s been true of most of her muses. She has always mostly written about the way these men make her feel. I think some cleverly and quietly swapped perspective songs about Joe Alwyn are the exception, not the rule.

Travis doesn’t need to be a great muse to be a great husband. He may not inspire her best lyrics, but she’s pledged allegiance to his vibes and the songs about him scream human exclamation point. If she writes the worst men the best, maybe these songs are proof that the Travis fairy tale is as good as the world believes it to be.

The Greatest of Luxuries Is Your Secrets

Set aside the issue of muses for a moment. Another element of Taylor’s music that has made her so successful is her ability to be both hyper-specific and beautifully universal in her writing. She can offer up the perfect amount of detail to bring life to her scene, but leave you wanting enough that you’re able to color in the lines with your own experiences and dreams.

“All Too Well” is the ultimate example of this. You can easily imagine yourself forgetting your scarf after dancing in the refrigerator light with whatever man broke your heart. Jake Gyllenhaal may have inspired the song, but millions of listeners who have never met the man could map their own heartbreak onto it.

Take a detour with me for a moment.

Modern monarchy is a nearly impossible institution because we know too much about its personalities. Monarchy works better with a little mystery. Subjects needed some separation from their rulers to allow them to believe they were truly God-ordained, or at least a little more special than the commoners. In the modern era, the flaws of royals are splashed across front pages, in memoirs, and in court cases.

Swift is pop royalty. We also know — or believe we know — so much detail about her personal life. A song like “Wood” is a better ride (no pun intended) with some more ambiguity about exactly which redwood tree we are meant to be envisioning.

I’d argue her best writing came from her most private years. folklore and evermore were framed at the time as coming largely from fictional places. In retrospect, I don’t believe that at all. Still, she left the details fuzzy enough to believe it at the time. Even on TTPD, many of the songs seem to contain influence from multiple romantic muses. I don’t need to know exactly who walked into “The Black Dog” to make it the best song on the album. In fact, knowing for sure would almost certainly diminish some of its power. It doesn’t matter if the scenes in “it’s time to go” were ever real; the power is in the deeper sentiment they inspired.

The poems included with the album variants hint at some of the vulnerability and wrestling with fame I was hoping to hear in the songs themselves. It’s not the first time she’s given us such interesting introspection in poetry instead of lyrics, and I hope it won’t be the last.²

Always Rooting For the Anti-Hero

The other personal element I’m struggling with is the lack of vulnerability and self-reflection on this album.

Maybe that’s an unfair critique. TTPD was her most vulnerable album to date. It would be reasonable for her to have a vulnerability hangover and want to scale that back.

Still, my favorite stuff from Taylor (or most any artist) is when she’s working through something hard. I’ve loved hearing her sort out questions like “Will you love me if I can’t give you peace?” “Will I continue to be good at my craft?” “Will you accept my apology after I screwed up so we can start again?” “Am I the problem?” I don’t hear those themes here. I hear a Taylor who is stuck (and The New Yorker agrees!³).

There’s almost no wrestling with her own weaknesses on this album. The Taylor I hear on this album is riding high, not in a moment of growth. Again, maybe unfair. She’s had a hard few years and this album isn’t about that. There is part of me that loves that she gave us a more simple, happy album. There’s another part that misses my favorite part of her artistry — especially when I was expecting some deeper themes. This is where the title of the album and marketing really mismatch for me with the actual content.

The Dominoes Cascaded in a Line

It’s no secret that I expected some more darkness and wrestling with fame on this album. I wrote a whole piece on it! I don’t think that expectation was misplaced. The title of the album and all the visuals point us there. The album doesn’t deliver on that much outside of the final, titular track. She hasn’t had an album so mismatched from its marketing since Reputation, and even then, the first half of that album does match what was pitched.

I’ve seen multiple critiques that this album lacks focus, and I’m inclined to agree. The real struggle, I think, is that Taylor has been pulling at multiple intertwined threads for a few albums now.

IF the goal is thematically aligned albums, what may have worked better is a restructuring of her last few to make them tighter and more cohesive. Imagine a different timeline with a breakdown like this:

1. The Tortured Poets Department (The Heartbreak Album)
   - in which Taylor mourns the loss of her double heartbreak
   - Songs include: So Long, London, loml, The Prophecy, etc.

2. The Life of a Showgirl (The Fame Album)
   - in which Taylor wrestles with her fame and public scrutiny
   - Songs include: I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, How Did It End?, Clara Bow, CANCELLED!, etc.

3. Opalite (The Rebirth Album)
   - in which Taylor celebrates new love and a fresh start post-Eras tour
   - Songs include: The Alchemy, Eldest Daughter, Wi$h Li$t, etc.

It would be hard to disentangle some of the summer 2024 Matty Healy drama entirely from the pushback of her fans, but I think it would be possible and end up feeling like connective tissue between albums. Putting the fame stuff, which I found to be some of the most interesting and well-written on TTPD, all together would also keep The Life of a Showgirl in line with its own marketing. Clearing those decks would leave us space for a more focused celebration of her current joy and more aligned album visuals.

I Think I’ve Seen This Film Before

At the end of the day, my biggest issue with this album is that I’ve heard a better version of nearly all of these songs before - from Taylor herself!

“Honey” is sweet, but “Sweet Nothing” is a better song. “Wood” is fun, but “Dress” and “False God” are sexier.

“Father Figure” is interesting and smart, but pales in comparison to her previous song about Scott Borchetta, “my tears ricochet.” It’s the same story with a different tone. As NPR put it, she is “exchanging the vulnerability of her 2020 song about her ex- label head Scott Borchetta, “My Tears Ricochet,” for the sharper tone of a woman who’s muscled up and is now determined to deliver blows instead of absorbing them.” We can frame this as her reclaiming the power in the narrative, but let’s be real; the power in this situation has been solely with Taylor for years now. The real punch is the success of her rerecording project and the recent purchase of the original masters themselves.

After 12 albums and nearly 300 songs released, I get it. It must be frustrating and impossible to be measured against yourself when you have the track record she does. The easiest way to avoid that would be to write about some new things. It’s why I’d love for her to take a real break and come back with some fresh inspiration.

You Still Do It For Me, Babe

Despite the weaknesses I see here, this album remains a lot of fun. I really do like it. It grows on me with every listen.

Showgirl Taylor feels confident and at peace. I love that for us and for her. Her playful side, which has historically gotten far less attention than her recounting of heartbreak, is fully present. She’s having fun and inviting us into the party, too.

The lyrical depth is there, too, in moments. Like much of her best work, it requires more than one listen to mine the biggest gems. Every listen brings a new lyrical treasure to the surface to examine and enjoy. The highs may not be as high as they are on other albums, but the lows aren’t as low either. There’s no flop here. However, I don’t think there’s a mega hit either. I don’t need that to enjoy the album. The question is, does Taylor?

I’ll come back for a song-by-song breakdown with my favorites and favorite lines another day. This post is long enough already.

For now, The Life of a Showgirl is a solid B in my book. It’s a well-deserved celebration of Taylor Swift the person finding happiness — even if Taylor Swift the artist hasn’t found her new heights just yet.

1. And, as Nathan and Nora pointed out on Every Single Album, all signs point to her planning to do so.

2. I’d love to see her put out a book of poetry at some point.

3. I would like to state for the record that I used the word 'stuck' to describe Taylor before I saw this piece. Beth Silvers is my witness.