No-skip album? Maybe just skip the album. The so-called “Shakespeare of our time” has traded brilliance for billions. Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl” (TLOAS), was released on Friday, 3 Oct., and has done the unthinkable — pitted Swifties against each other.
Swifties went into this album with the same high hopes as usual, only to be met with a poorly written, overproduced and falsely advertised album that spends two and a half minutes singing about Travis Kelce’s penis. It appears that since Swift’s last album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” the poet has been tortured right out of her.
Taking the Shakespeare allegations to heart, Swift has taken what many see as Shakespeare’s first feminist play, Hamlet — where the leading female character, Ophelia, drowns herself after losing all autonomy of her life — and made it seem as though Ophelia could have been saved by a hunky football player with a “magic wand.”
The lyrics in this album are nothing short of uncomfortable. Any poetic lines have been overshadowed by phrases like “I can make deals with the devil because my d—’s bigger,” and “I’m not a bad b—, and this isn’t savage.”
Swift has said that she has three kinds of songs: Fountain Pen songs, Quill songs and Glitter Gel pen songs. And as Swifties keep comparing this album, a Glitter Gel pen one, to “folklore” and “evermore,” Quill albums, there is much outrage coming from the supporters of TLOAS. Yet even when comparing TLOAS to other Glitter Gel pen albums like “1989,” it doesn’t hold a candle to them. It can barely produce a spark.
Since becoming a billionaire in 2023, Swift seems more interested in money than music. Her songs have started to follow formulas, with multiple tracks on her albums following the same structure.
This album seems to say more about capitalism than it does about show business. Before the album was even released, 11 different CD editions and eight different vinyl editions were announced, including three CDs with acoustic bonus tracks announced the day following the album release.
You may be thinking, is that it? Only eighteen versions? Well, don’t worry! Because there’s a movie too! “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl” premiered in theaters the weekend of the release, showing exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of her music video for “The Fate of Ophelia.”
“I definitely think that the movie helped me like [the album] better,” senior Alexia Bucci said. “I misinterpreted a lot of lyrics because I thought all the songs sounded the same.”
Many fans agreed with Bucci’s take and have warmed up to the album. But you shouldn’t need a movie to like an album. This movie is just more money being thrown into the release of TLOAS that guarantees a huge profit.
Swift’s brand has always focused on “women supporting women” and “artists supporting artists.” But, clearly, that doesn’t apply to her now.
Fans have theorized that the seventh track, “Actually Romantic,” is a response to Charli xcx’s song “Sympathy Is a Knife,” which Charli explicitly said was not a diss track before its release.
She goes deep into her own insecurities, explaining that Swift’s success makes her feel inferior. She mentions wanting to kill herself out of shame for her feelings, to which Swift responded, saying “it’s actually sweet all the time you’ve spent on me” and “it feels like you’re flirting with me,” failing to understand the message of Charli’s song.
In another controversial song, “CANCELLED!” Swift addresses cancel culture, something that has surrounded her friend group for years. Two of her friends, Blake Lively and Sophie Turner, were “cancelled” earlier this year for the promotion of Lively’s new film, “It Ends With Us,” and Turner’s divorce from Joe Jonas.
“Good thing I like my friends cancelled. I like them cloaked in Gucci and in scandal” seems to come across as though Swift is saying her friends’ wealth protects them from the need to take accountability for their actions.
The “Queen of Pop Music” has now succumbed to using the words, “Did you girlboss too close to the sun,” which many believe is a quote from Candace Owens when talking about Blake Lively being cancelled. It’s clear that Swift needs to put down TikTok, leave Los Angeles and make her way back to the lakes where the poet died.
As much as it hurts me to say it, this album was a flop. We were promised a showgirl album, but where is the big brass band? TLOAS is certainly not like the other albums…and not in a good way.