Don’t rush to judge Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’
Some might be cringing over the lyrics, but one expert says Taylor Swift’s album takes a while to unpack.
It’s been over a week since Taylor Swift released her 12th album, “Life of a Showgirl,” to mixed reviews. Some people loved it but others took issue with things like the “cringe” lyrics or derivative sounds.
But it might take a while before fans warm to the album, as is often the case with Swift’s music. The pop star has had many different “eras” now, each one with a different sound and vibe, and it can take a while for fans to adjust, says Catherine Fairfield, a visiting teaching professor of English at Northeastern University who taught a course on Swift.
“This happens every time one of her albums comes out,” Fairfield says. “If we can look at recent ‘eras,’ every time there is a reaction (about) how this is not what I thought it would … and the reactions are very loud and very strong, especially in the first 72 hours.”
But oftentimes, Fairfield says, the music grows on people over time and this will likely be the case with “The Life of a Showgirl” as people take time to digest the music and lyrics.
“The pause is very helpful because Taylor’s always doing something different and showing us something unexpected,” Fairfield says. “It’s natural to have a gut reaction when everyone has an expectation … (but) we have to have time to process that as listeners and make sense of it.”
The initial response to “The Life of a Showgirl” has been mixed. Rolling Stone gave the album five stars, saying “Swift hits all her marks.” Commercially, the album was a hit. It was Swift’s 15th number 1 on the Billboard top 200, making her the number one solo artist with this many top-ranked albums.
But other noted music outlets were more critical. Pitchfork rated the album a 5.9, saying Swift’s music “has never been less compelling.” The Guardian dubbed it as having “dull razzle-dazzle.”
Elsewhere online, listeners took issue with the songwriting, which they said doesn’t hold up to her prior work, and the fact that, despite the name, the record really didn’t offer a glimpse into the life of a showgirl. Others complained about the rollout, which once again included the sale of multiple “variants” of the same record.
Fairfield says this response is similar to how fans have initially reacted to Swift’s past work. Lyrics on her past albums “Lover” and “Midnights” also faced intense scrutiny for being “cringe.” “The Tortured Poets Department” was “heavily critiqued” for being “too verbose,” Fairfield adds.
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When it comes to Swift’s lyric writing (which many are fans of), “The Life of a Showgirl” takes a significant departure from her more recent albums. Fairfield says that Swift’s albums over the last five years have contained a lot of wordplay, literary references and storytelling through elaborate lyrics.
“The Life of a Showgirl” is different, she adds with shorter sentences and punchier wordplay, combined with a more upbeat pop sound, likely in response to complaints that its predecessor, “The Tortured Poets Department,” was too long.
But despite fan complaints, Fairfield says the album contains a lot of the same hallmarks as Swift’s previous work. She points to the titular track as an example of the storytelling that fans came to love from albums like “folklore” and “evermore.” Similarly, “The Fate of Ophelia” is a direct reference to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” while old Hollywood references pop up throughout the album.
Additionally, fans can find a lot of Swift’s familiar motifs from past work in this new album, Fairfield says, whether it’s her fairy tale imagery or stories on the woes of being in the public eye as seen in “The Lucky One” from “Red” or in “The Last Great American Dynasty” from “folklore.”
“We conflate simplicity with this not being as strong of an album,” Fairfield says. “That’s where I think waiting can be helpful to see how this lands. I would encourage listeners to have fun listening for narratives of who Taylor is and what’s going on in her life as much as they like, and then also revel in digging beneath that to see what else is there that she has laid seeds of for us as listeners to dig into because there are so many layers that it can make the listening experience that much richer.”
With the album release now over a week ago, what does Fairfield think “The Life of the Showgirl’s” legacy will be among Swift’s other eras? She predicts it’ll be remembered as a high-energy, happy album, much like “Lover.”
“It’s a nice contrast to ‘Tortured Poets Department’ being so emotionally fraught and full of dense songwriting that you spend a lot of time unpacking as you fall in love with it,” she says. “‘Showgirl’ is a very different kind of listening experience. It’s trying to grab you right away and have these songs catch in your head and be easy to memorize, easy to dance to and pick up the vibe of right away. And I think it’s really interesting to see how Taylor’s been able to offer these very different listening experiences back-to-back and show her range and versatility in that way.”
