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In a Swiftie’s mind, the worst offense you can commit against Taylor is any. I am going to throw caution to the wind a little bit here, but there is just no excuse anymore. Taylor Swift has made her bed, she can damn well sleep in it. Her lyrical capabilities demonstrate the depth of a kid’s pool, yet her fans still somehow manage to drown themselves in her elusive “genius”. For the better part of her career, Taylor has coasted on a dinghy of milquetoast feminist platitudes, reckless dating insights, and an encouraged rabidity amongst her most avid listeners. She’d dig out the occasional nugget of a release, much to the surprise of many who weren’t completely sucked into the cult. Her 2020 year saw her release two of her most critically acclaimed records of her career. Mature, lusciously produced folk pop that actually made me feel a little bit insane. You mean to tell me, she was capable of *THIS*?? The whole time?!?! Needless to say, I had slightly higher hopes for her next outing than normal.
Midnights wrote the jokes for us though. A flabby regression back into her old habits, this release copped a rightfully disappointed reaction from music fans at large (I don’t count Swifties in this because it’s not fair to regular folk). Subsequently on her 2024 follow-up “The Tortured Poets Department”, the eye rolls became involuntary. Neither her nor Jack were anywhere close to the mark, and it resulted in probably her most meagre project to date. Can you believe that thing has stayed atop the charts pretty much since it arrived? The power of rigged marketing. Not a hit single in sight, the butt of all jokes amidst its initial reception, by all accounts, this album was a total flop. Something that should have been relegated to the annals of late-career bungles. The album’s perceived staying power indicates that Swift had reached an impossible cultural apex. Re-release upon bonus release upon re-release upon deluxe edition kept her most hungry consumers scoffing. Neatly-timed extras seemingly employed to rain on other artists’ parades. I would stop at just calling it pure late-stage capitalistic greed, but then I would have to stop the review here: and I haven’t even talked about the album yet…
“The Life of a Showgirl” does a lot of things very wrong. Whether Taylor was intending to do it or not, she has managed to lift the theatrical mask off her face, and reveal to the world who she actually is; an opportunist. Particularly egregious given her historically liberal positions, it turns out that Taylor is more than willing to throw any shred of good will out the window if it means cashing in. Just like any other billionaire who’s monopolised their industry, Taylor Swift has monopolised the musical artform and turned it into a bloodsport. There is no possible way that she actually enjoys making this shit. It feels ripped straight out of her book of inane clichés to the point of parody. “Eldest Daughter”’s first verse is a half degree off of being an anti-cyberbullying advert, as she rails on “trolls” and “memes” as if they’ve ever personally affected her in the slightest. “CANCELLED!” is maybe like the spiritual successor to “You Need To Calm Down”, except instead of it coming across more like a plea for people to look inward at what they’re really mad at, the former seems to just tell anyone that has genuine issues with her recent behaviour to get fucked. Taylor, you’re buddy buddy with known MAGAT Brittany Mahomes, do you actually think we’re stupid? The CIA probably couldn’t water torture an admission of guilt like this out of me or anyone, yet here’s “Ophelia” herself, claiming her set with Trump’s golden little cherub. Not to mention the racial dog whistles as well, like on the aptly stylised “Wi$h Li$t” (get it? Cause she’s a billionaire?). “Have a couple kids, got the whole block looking like you” is legitimately eugenicist, and Swifties still have the nerve to tell us we’re “thinking too hard” about this… no fucking way.
What about Charli XCX? As if Taylor’s media illiteracy, and weirdly anti-empowerment stance, wasn’t already on full display through her appropriation of Ophelia’s story, she demonstrates further how she managed to fluke high school English on the childish “Actually Romantic”. For one, it’s a brazenly gutless attempt at channeling the genuine angst of “Where Is My Mind?” by the Pixies. Not only this, but it’s a total misread of XCX’s “Sympathy is a knife”, which detailed Charli’s insecurities towards Taylor’s success. Not even remotely a diss, it should’ve been taken as pure flattery. It also doubles as an utter temper tantrum by the popular girl who finally has to take it from one of her peers after dishing it for the last several years. “Boring Barbie” is funny, laugh at it and move on. No one cares to listen to your performative outrage anymore. You’re so unbothered that you bothered to spend time dwelling on this nothing burger for two and half painful minutes. The irony of releasing the most vanilla-sounding track in response to this apparent dig. It’s still “BRAT” for me.
When Taylor Swift isn’t boring me to tears with a middling bout of unoriginality, she’s infuriating me with writing that wouldn’t even pass for an eighth grade poetry assignment. This is the golden child for modern day pop music, the several-time Grammy award winning Taylor Swift, releasing her most ChatGPT-ified record to date. This is her showing the world who she really is, and the depressing part about it is, she’s probably going to walk away mostly unscathed by her die-hards. The bubble is bursting though, in nanoscopic slow motion. Her business model won’t be viable for much longer, and that means she’s going to have to lean on the pure quality of her work. When that happens, I’m not sure it’s going to hold up. All these Easter egg hunts, created with AI of all fucking things, can’t keep your head above water forever. Eventually, you probably have to accept that you’ve lived long enough to see yourself become the villain. Where she goes from here, who knows? Hopefully it’s as far away from her closest friends as possible, they’re a really bad influence on her.
Dan Will Review 