Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ is a record-breaking disappointment

Less than two years since her last release, pop icon Taylor Swift returns to the charts this month with The Life of a Showgirl. In its first week, the album broke Spotify chart records set previously by Swift herself, and with its No.1 debut in the UK, Swift is now the international artist with the most UK No.1s, overtaking Elvis Presley. However, while The Life of a Showgirl seems to live up to its name commercially, the music itself makes our ‘showgirl’ seem a sellout.

With ‘The Fate of Ophelia’, the album’s opening track and lead single, Swift momentarily convinces us that she’s on her usual form. The track is instantly catchy and its infectious chorus masterfully employs the double-clap, echoing Swift’s best-known hits ‘You Belong With Me’ and ‘Shake It Off’. Moreover, coming out of the deeply melancholy Tortured Poet’s Department, Swift promises a departure from broken-hearted ‘purgatory’ – sounds perfect, right?

Beyond the first track, Swift’s lyricism falls short of the standard she’s set in the past

Not quite. Listen again, and Swift’s reductive and cliché storytelling in ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ tells you exactly what to expect from this album. She uses the Shakespearean example of ‘Ophelia’ but undercuts the literary reference with the basic archetype of the male saviour, making a disappointing lyrical regression. Since her politically-charged 2019 album Lover, Swift has championed female independence – “If I was a man, then I’d be the man” – and always maintained within her lyrical identity a level of agency – “I’ll never forgive, the smallest man who ever lived”. Now, it seems her notorious romance with NFL star Travis Kelce has led her to ditch her feminist tendencies and self-appointed ‘female rage’ for bland passivity as she accredits her emancipation to the man with the “key”. The ‘tortured poet’ is writing like a teenager again, just twenty years too late. 

Beyond the first track, Swift’s lyricism falls short of the standard she’s set in the past. ‘Eldest Daughter’ takes the coveted track-five spot, a position typically reserved for Swift’s most emotional and vulnerable songs, but forfeits any chance of jerking a tear thanks to its undeniably awkward lyrics. Swift genuinely sings the line “every joke’s just trolling and memes” within the first verse and from there on it becomes impossible to take the song seriously. Swift bemoans her inability to be “cool”, and while her cringe-inducing word choice may be an ironic method of proving this incompetence, her attempt at Gen-Z vernacular surely alienates any young listener who might have had an ounce of sympathy for her.

Swift dedicates an entire song, ‘Wood’, to an embarrassing double-entendre in tribute to her new beaux’s “manhood”, marking a peculiar move for the Swift brand. She’s kept her fans accustomed to relatively tame lyrics for years, but now it seems Swift is taking inspiration from the salacious lyricism of her pop-protégé Sabrina Carpenter.

Swift’s reunion with pop-expert producers Max Martin and Shellback offers a refreshing departure from the synth-heavy production of her recent releases

Even weirder, the only song which shines lyrically is the final track, featuring Carpenter herself. She and Swift tap-dance across a distinctly glamorous soundscape, charming the listener with anecdotal wit and almost erasing the memory of the previous eleven songs by finally matching the album’s concept and rich visual identity. Strangely, all it takes for Swift to make a song lyrically and sonically consistent with her album’s promised aesthetic is to feature the very artist she’s shoddily ripped off three tracks prior.

Swifties, fear not! If you can look past the undeniable mess of her lacklustre penning, Swift’s reunion with pop-expert producers Max Martin and Shellback offers a refreshing departure from the synth-heavy production of her recent releases and thankfully allows some stand-out moments. ‘Father Figure’ cleverly interpolates the 1988 George Michael song of the same name, placing Swift as the powerful family breadwinner with grandiose choral backing vocals to match. ‘Ruin the Friendship’ harks back to the acoustic swells of Swift’s early albums Fearless and Speak Now. ‘CANCELLED!’ dips into sultry soft-rock and ‘Actually Romantic’ channels addictive 2000s angst. If you don’t speak English, the album will sound great.

Unfortunately for Swift, returning to the producers of her past successes is not enough to make a thematically consistent record. She leaves a vast disconnect between her glitzy retro aesthetic and her clumsy, confused, and tragically contemporary lyricism. This star once hailed ‘timeless’ might need some time off.

Recommended Listening: ‘The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter)’, ‘Father Figure’

★★