Review: The Life of a Showgirl
Marking her 12th studio album, Taylor Swift released “The Life Of A Showgirl”
on Oct. 3. Announced on fiance Travis Kelce’s podcast “New Heights,” the record
includes 12 tracks, opening with “The Fate of Ophelia,” a romantic tune with heavy
references to German artist Friedrich Heyser’s painting “The Death of Ophelia.”
The following 11 songs are filled with over-production and what can be read as
superficial and tone deaf lyrics, a noticeable difference compared to her four most
recent albums, where Swift wrote off a softer lineup of songs with objectively more
meaningful lyrics. Aside from a change in muses a large part of the sudden switch
in quality comes from a change in production. For the larger duration of her career,
Swift closely worked with producer and songwriter Jack Antonoff, and began working with Aaron Dessner alongside Antonoff in 2020.
Working alongside each other, Antonoff and Dessner crafted a specific mix of pop and solemn sounds curated for Swift’s style and voice. But for this album fans are reintroduced to Max Martin and Karl Johan Schuster known professionally as “Shellback,” a famous production duo known for their collaboration with pop artists. The two previously had influence on her early album “1989,” and this time around both fans and critics blame the two producers for the over-produced and low quality sound of “Showgirl.”
Lyrically fans are seeing a big decrease in quality from her past albums. For example, on the “Evermore” track “Cowboy like me” Swift writes, “Now you hang from my lips like the gardens of Babylon / with your boots beneath my bed / forever is the sweetest con,” an intelligently poetic lyric using the gardens of Babylon as a comparison to false love.
On “Showgirl” Swift turns away from this style of writing. On “Eldest daughter” she writes, “I’ve been dying just from trying to seem cool / but I’m not a bad b*tch / and this isn’t savage.” Once the song titles were announced alongside the album cover fans expected the song to hold more weight and meaning within its
lyrics. Instead fans received four minutes of poor storytelling and weak one-liners.
On the song “CANCELLED!” Swift’s lyrics describe her feelings about cancel culture and A-list celebrities. She sings, “Did you girl-boss too close to the sun? / Did they catch you having far too much fun? / Come with me, when they see us, they’ll run.” Later she says, “It’s a good thing I like my friends cancelled / (You know that) I like ‘em cloaked in Gucci and scandal / I like my whisky sour / And poison thorny flowers (ooh).” While this isn’t Swift’s first time experimenting with flowery language it is by far her worst attempt.
However, once alternate vinyl variations with acoustic versions of songs were released, fans’ opinions on the album began to differ. More specifically the song
“Wi$h Li$t” contains slightly more heartfelt lyrics. The combination of slow guitar, calm vocals and lack of production makes for a standout song left off of the original album.
The album fails to live up to the expectations of Swift’s audience due to its changes in productions and a noticeable decrease in the quality of lyrics.
