I Listened to Taylor's New Album 8 More Times and Maybe...I’ve Slightly Changed My Mind

It's been exactly two weeks since Taylor Swift released her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl. To say it's been a wild ride would be an understatement. There were diss tracks, a dreaded song that thankfully WAS NOT about Kanye and actually a great anthem for friendship, a cinematic release party and one very spicy, Sabrina Carpetner-esque earworm that Swift's mom is adorably taking literally.

In the last 14 days, I have now listened to The Life of a Showgirl a total of ten times (eight since my initial review) and though my thoughts remain unchanged, I am surprised to say that maybe I've been...slightly won over?!

In my original review, I said there were bops. I stand behind that. To my own shame (only because I am introverted and do not like making a spectacle), I've found myself bouncing along to the beats while on the subway and other public places. I can't help it. Bless the Max Martin/Shellback touch. The bass line and drums are perfection. They make you want to move.

The Non-Explicit Recording Made It Better

A potentially minority opinion: I personally prefer non-explicit recordings of artists' albums. I think a large part of my initial distaste was the vulgarity of the original. In all forms of prose, I find that excessive use of expletives rather distracting. As a writer, I acknowledge that they can be useful, but respectfully, I will also argue that gratuitousness reduces the power and force of strong language. All my attention then zeros in on it, and I don't really process anything else. Listening to the "clean" version of The Life of a Showgirl did a lot to improve my appreciation for other aspects of the album, like the beats, melodies and even the writing.

Please know I am not contesting the commercial success of The Life of the Showgirl. Even I understand that numbers don't lie. Per Billboard, the album moved over 4 million units in its debut week, dethroning Adele's 25 for the honor of the biggest sales. Every song also made it into the Billboard 100—taking over the top 12 spots. If that's not dominance, I can't tell you what is.

However, all this taken into account and eight listens of the non-explicit version later, I still can't say this is a magnum opus. It smartly—dazzlingly, even—captures a time in the Grammy winner's career when she was at her peak. It pulls back a curtain, satisfies the public's voyeuristic urge to see the inner life of a literal showgirl. But Swift's had better lyrics, and she's too old and too successful to be writing diss tracks and hashing complaints. The Eras Tour might have been her cultural peak, but I think she actually truly ascended with the release of Folklore and Evermore.

The speed at which Swift has dropped albums since 2020 has been astounding and, IMHO, getting...worse? In the last five years, the prolific songwriter has released five albums, for an average of one a year. She used to put something out every two years, a pattern that seems rather consistent across the industry.

Folklore and Evermore were the last great hurrahs. It felt experimental for her after over a decade of migrating from country to pop to establishing herself as the pop princess. The visuals were executed with precision, and, importantly, delivered on the acoustic expectations. Both albums had a lot of flannel and woodsy motifs. We got soft, mellow albums with great storytelling that made everything feel mystical.

From Midnights onward, I've had the impression that Swift has traded her artistry for a content farm. Not, necessarily, in a bad way. She's a master at creating a world for each album and the aesthetics are always sublime. Confusingly, there's now always cognitive dissonance between what the album art is queuing me to expect, and the actual sound the musician delivers. I thought Midnights would be a rock album. The Tortured Poets Department had me thinking we would throwback to the whimsy and wonder of Folklore. The Life of a Showgirl was begging for some big band/Old Hollywood reference. Did we get it? No.

From the writing to the visuals, everything seems to be made for the content machine. Pleasing and unoffensive to the masses and, importantly, easily disseminated on social media with alacrity. Unfortunately, the price for quick, internet-friendly content is good art. I'm personally for the argument that instead of expecting my favorite artists to churn out content for my consumption at regular intervals, they should be afforded the time to actually sit with their creativity, without backlash or risk of falling out of relevancy. What I'm saying here is that if Swift took a five year break and came back with something that felt actually good, I wouldn't be mad at that.