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Growing up, my musical world was one that existed under a rock. My parents cut the secular radio after my dad heard Katy Perry belt out "Last Friday Night" and asked, "What is this?!" when the line "...We took too many shots, think we kissed but I forgot..." hit. From that point on, we had two choices: Christian radio...and Taylor Swift.
Naturally, Ms. Swift soundtracked my entire childhood—and now, adult life. Name an album, and I can pinpoint a time, even a place. The eponymous Taylor Swift album brings me back to sitting on the floor of the dining room with a boom box in elementary school. "Teardrops on My Guitar" was one of my first figure skating routines. I blasted "All Too Well" on a sunny November day hurtling down I5 from LA to San Francisco with my mom. Lover was the theme of my gap year in Paris. The melancholic, mystical longing of Folklore comforted me as I wandered the shores of the northern California coast during the pandemic.
Admittedly, since the release of Midnights in 2022, I've been in a Taylor slump. My hot take is that The Tortured Poets Department was a hot mess of performative intellectualism. Like I said, I'm a gentle Swiftie. I haven't listened to her music in a year, because it's all sounding the same.
That's why I had high hopes and even higher trepidation with the announcement of Swift's 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. The news that Max Martin and Shellback were producing instead of Jack Antonoff was a relief. For Showgirl to be "good," I personally needed an evolution in Swift's sound.
Being the gentle Swiftie that I am, I did not stay up until midnight but rather hauled myself out of bed at 6:45 a.m. to listen to The Life of a Showgirl. First, I'll give the credit. No matter what I think of the music, I will concede that Swift is an exceptional world-builder. The reason she has "eras" is because visually, each album is so strong. This whole "showgirl" schtick? The photographs? The colors? The fonts? Brilliant. Now, on to the music.
Ahead of the album drop, PureWow editors went off in a work chat about our hopes for the new music and the metrics by which we would deem it a "success." One such barometer was the danceability. We were delighted that Max Martin and Shellback were the sole producers this go-around, and, indeed, the trio delivered plenty of bops that had even me shimmying, bleary-eyed in bed as the tracks rolled. The likes of "Opalite," "The Fate of Ophelia" and "Wood" seemed to be particular standouts that will get people grooving at the next Taylor Swift dance party. Some outlets are predicting that "The Fate of Ophelia" will emerge as the lead single.
One of the other points PureWow editors agreed on was that the writing needed to be, well, tight.
"It'll be a hit if she combines her Red and Folklore-era storytelling (the searing specificity!) with the joie de vivre, sonically, of 1989. And maybe the edge of Reputation," PureWow Vice President of Editorial, Candace Davison, wrote in the chat.
In this vein, I don't think Swift quite hit it—some tracks, including "Elizabeth Taylor," felt rather clunky to me. But she's inching her way back with the lyrics on "Opalite," "The Fate of Ophelia" and "The Life of a Showgirl." Specifically, "The Life of a Showgirl" really harkened back to that Folklore intensity of transporting the listener to another world and another story. Like "The Last Great American Dynasty," she recounts a tale of someone else, before flipping the script and entering the scene at the end. I liked that twist. "Opalite," with the line, "You were dancing through the lightning strikes/Sleepless in the onyx night/But now the sky is opalite" I thought felt particularly hallmark Swiftian in its musicality and poetry.
My biggest benchmark for deeming "The Life of a Showgirl" a good album was Swift's ability (or not) to ditch the synth pop sound and referential callbacks to high school. She succeeded in the latter, but not so much in the former. Mainly, I was disappointed that there wasn't a sonic evolution, in the vein that Beyoncé always seems to be innovating and experimenting with each album.
The heavy but simultaneously bright baseline—what Variety dubbed a throb—was evocative of 1989 and Reputation. Piano-centric tracks like "Eldest Daughter" harkened back to "New Year's Day," while "CANCELLED!" really hit on the Rep vibes. Riffs, intros, melodies and writing also brought Lover and Red to mind.
If anything, I get the impression that since The Tortured Poets Department, rather than charting new paths, Swift has been taking a page from Gen Z pop girls. This go-round, she's got the blatant, raunchy sexually forward lyrics I would have expected from collaborator Sabrina Carpenter (who is noticeably undetectable in "The Life of a Showgirl") in songs like "Father Figure," "Actually Romantic" and "Wood."
Overall, The Life of a Showgirl was a decent showing for a legendary artist who's carving out a new era after about 20 years of record-breaking dominance. I don't know if this is Grammy-worthy, but I think it's a step in the right direction. I was reading that Jonathan Anderson, Dior's new creative director, noted that he would need about five collections to completely establish his vision for the house and break the routine. So if Swift is, indeed, entering a new chapter (and there's a lot going on!), I'm open to giving her time to establish that.
