REVIEW: Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl

Good morning! It's Taylor Swift album release day, which means all is happy and right in the world! (I am in a deep denial and delulu state help!)

The Life of a Showgirl was my most anticipated album of the year. I attended the midnight release party at Target with one of my best friends, Madelyn, and we later attended the Official Release Party of a Showgirl together. It was such an eventful and fun experience, but I'm not here to talk about that. The music and its quality are what I'm going to be putting under my meticulous Swiftie scrutinizing, and what follows is my track-by-track breakdown.

Our lead single, The Fate of Ophelia is a great opener, and really refreshing to hear after her last album opener and lead single was Fortnight. It finally feels like we've gotten a great lead single after years of poor choices. I love the light and feathery vibe to this song, it's very catchy and has been stuck in my head since listening. "Kept it 100 on the land, the sea, the sky/Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes" is constantly running through my mind!

Elizabeth Taylor feels like it could've been a Reputation vault track, more than CANCELLED! in my honest opinion. It initially reminded me a lot of End Game sonically. Opalite is lyrically boring but compared to some of the other songs on this album, it ends up being really strong. Again, I really love the light and airy production, reminded me a lot of New Light by John Mayer and I can't get that comparison out of my head. Father Figure ended up not being as dark as I had initially thought it would be. The production feels slightly similar in theme to The Fate of Ophelia and Opalite, and I really enjoyed this one.

Unfortunately, this is where we take a turn for the "meh." Eldest Daughter is definitely her worst track five by far. Lyrically clunky and very, very boring. Ruin the Friendship has stolen the most shocking lyric award from But Daddy I Love Him. Taylor including a song about the same friend she had written Red's Forever Winter about was a bit of a shock, but I feel like it was a releasing of those lingering feelings that she had to get out in order to move forward with Travis. Unfortunately, it is a bit sonically boring and does not catch my attention all that much outside of the lyrics. This should have been the track 5 choice. Actually Romantic, while lyrically interesting and clever, falls short due to the production once again. The '00s soft grunge rock is not my thing at all, and this feels like something I would find on an Olivia Rodrigo or Avril Lavigne album.

We get back on track with Wi$h Li$t, which was a sleeper hit for me, one I surprisingly ended up enjoying the more I listened to it. The vocals in the chorus and glittery sound really sold me on this song, though I'm not the biggest fan of it lyrically. It feels a little tone deaf considering current conditions in the US right now. Wood sampling the Jackson 5's I Want You Back was not on my bingo card, but here we are. This song, while the production is catchy and fun, has some of the worst lyricism from Taylor since ME!. CANCELLED! is Vigilante Shit's disappointing big sister. It's not terrible, but telling the world that you prefer your friends cancelled when your friends are the plantation-owning Blake Lively and Trump-supporting Brittany Mahomes is very telling. Again, another tone-deaf song but it saves itself by being very catchy.

Honey severely descended in my ranking since my first listen. It's a contender for the worst song lyrically, and the production is absolutely terrible- feels like what would happen if When Emma Falls In Love was mixed with Call It What You Want: it does not sound good. The Life of a Showgirl was my most anticipated track. Maybe it was because I was expecting more, something giving "grand finale" with a big bang and ended up sounding like a Speak Now vault reject. I truly did not like anything about this song at all, and it's my least favorite. People have been pointing out that the chorus is the same melody that's used in the Jonas Brothers song Cool and I gave it a listen... I have to say I enjoyed that better.

I am quite a bit underwhelmed, and I feel like a lot of factors affected this. The highs are really high, but with the number of songs I didn’t enjoy it does not feel like a lot of new enjoyable content. It's as if she heard the criticisms of The Tortured Poets Department and swung too far in the other direction to combat them, and she went too short and generic with this album. The lyricism is very poor compared to what I've come to expect from Taylor. She also advertised this as "bulletproof pop" that will keep people dancing where it ended up being good mid-tempo pop that might have people swaying. Not great, not terrible, but somewhere in the range of good and okay.

My Ranking

1) The Fate of Ophelia

2) Elizabeth Taylor

3) Wi$h Li$t

4) Opalite

5) Father Figure

6) Wood

7) Ruin the Friendship

8) CANCELLED!

9) Actually Romantic

10) Honey

11) Eldest Daughter

12) The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter)

Ending thoughts: Jack, we're sorry, please come home. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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