The Life of a Showgirl is Taylor Swift’s newest addition to her long list of albums, and with social media having grown
control over entertainers’ careers, it seems that the pressure to please everyone may have gotten to Swift. On August 13th, she announced the album cover and track list on the podcast New Heights with her fiancé, Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason Kelce. Her website had continuous countdowns, and a new record color would be announced, which at first made fans excited, but after it kept only being records, fans got tired of it. Especially since the album hadn’t been released yet, and it seemed Swift was only doing it for the money. On October 3rd at midnight, the album was released, and immediately opinions were made.
In comparison to The Tortured Poets Department, The Life of a Showgirl is happy and upbeat; and considering how beloved The Tortured Poets Department comes across and it’s overall tone, many listeners for her new album were unsure what to think. Most decided it wasn’t her best work and they took to social media.
Most of the fans who had a bad impression of the album were long-time fans, and they felt the lyrics were simplistic and cringeworthy compared to her past work, where she is praised for her lyricism and metaphors. Swift has continually raised the bar with each album in her fans’ eyes, so maybe she go any higher and can no longer deliver. There was also confusion about the promotional campaign and the album itself; the title and pictures said theater and glamour, but fans didn’t feel the album gave the same energy. There is also criticism that the promotional strategy with the orange door and countdowns didn’t feel authentic, and Swift isn’t focusing on substance over spectacle. While other fans are defending Swift’s creative choices, believing most of her “cringe” lyrics were satire or quoting things said to her because of her time in the limelight. With most recent album releases, the hype is so high with all the social media and promotion that when it is first heard by listeners the hype dies down and critiques are made. But as time goes on and fans start to form their own opinions and connect to more of the songs and find new meaning within them, opinions change.
This album wasn’t suspected of containing any diss-tracks or putdowns since fans believed it would be mostly love songs
about Travis Kelce. But when fans heard Actually Romantic they realized it wasn’t about an ex but an old friend who had been talking badly about her, and they started searching Swift’s past. In 2018, Swift went on tour for her newest album, Reputation, and her opener was a singer named Charli XCX. Charli has recently blown up with her hit album brat, which kick-started her career and the revival of some of her old songs. She is known for the messy, party girl aesthetic, which entails messy makeup, alcohol, drugs, going out a lot, etc. So Swift’s first lyric in actually Romantic, being “I heard you call me boring Barbie when the coke got you brave, high-fived my ex, and then you said you’re glad he ghosted me,” which would make sense to be Charli since she is openly friends with Matty Healy who has been a person in the background of Swifts dating life with him being mentioned in The Tortured Poets Department. Neither artist has come out and said anything negative about the other, but fans still came to the respective artist’s defense. The more realistic take is that Swift meant no harm to Charli with Actually Romantic, but rather a joke of how she sees everyone talking who thinks they are hurting her, when really it’s like they’re in love with her because they think about her so much.
All the discussion around the album had fans waiting for Swift’s response to the hate, but she didn’t give them one; rather, she responded in a very Taylor Swift fashion, ” If it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying my name or my album title, you’re helping”. Which proved to be right because the album has broken the record of most albums sold in a week, with more than 3.4 million units sold. She also claimed she welcomes the chaos of the back and forth of opinions and discussion of songs and meanings, as well as saying that art is subjective and everyone is allowed to feel however they want about her music.
Swift has already confirmed she doesn’t intend to tour for The Life of a Showgirl because she just did the Eras tour and wants to focus on more personal things, like her recent engagement to Kelce. But she has set fans’ concerns about her pausing or stopping making music during an interview, where she promises she won’t just stop doing what she loves because her life is changing and she had past relationship where they thought she would eventually stop or fade out of the music industry to be with them; she then praised Kelce for being so supportive and understanding about how music is her whole life and has been her dream since she was a kid. The Life of a Showgirl encapsulates Swift’s evolution in her sound, relationships, and friendships. Taylor Swift is constantly redefining what it means to be a pop artist and keeps breaking records she sets that no other artist seems to be touching, which only leaves fans waiting to see what she does next and how she steps the game up time and time again.
