Editor’s Note: Grace Chaves is a third-year journalism major and The Point’s opinion editor. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Point.
I grew up listening to Taylor Swift’s early songs, “Love Story” and “Shake It Off.” Even when I listen to them now, I’m transported back to 2012, listening to Disney Radio with my sister. But so much has changed since those songs were released. Swift is no longer a rising pop star — she is the poster child of the music industry.
As I’ve grown up, so has my taste in music. I’d much rather listen to a punk rock song than a girl whining about her lovers set to a catchy pop beat. Don’t get me wrong — I adore artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. But there’s something about Swift’s music that I just don’t enjoy.
However, Swift’s new 12-track album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” caught my attention after I kept hearing such a wide range of opinions and criticisms about it on social media. It was purely out of curiosity that I decided to turn the new record on.
If I wasn’t a Swiftie before listening to “The Life of a Showgirl,” I am most definitely not a Swiftie now.
I don’t think I got through a single song without cringing through half of the lyrics. The first 15 seconds of “Eldest Daughter” sound promising, but I think I visibly recoiled at the line “Every joke’s just trolling and memes, sad as it seems, apathy is hot.”
Later in the song, Swift sings, “I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness,” which just feels like a more poetic way of saying “I’m not like other girls.” Then, to add insult to injury, she sings, “We all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire.” Don’t even get me started on the line, “Did you girl-boss too close to the sun,” in “CANCELLED!”
This is my formal petition to songwriters to not include Gen Z slang in your music. It’s really not going to age well. Why Swift included slang vocabulary into her new album is a mystery to me — I can only guess it was an attempt to stay relevant.
All that to say, there were a few standout songs that I wouldn’t mind listening to again. “Ruin The Friendship” and “Actually Romantic” felt like a nod to some of Swift’s earlier songs with the romantic lyrics and pop/country sounds, but these new songs had a darker twist to them.
But I must address the elephant in the room, otherwise known as the song that has taken TikTok by storm: “Wood.”
“Wood” includes the most sexual content that I’ve heard in a Swift song. As an artist who has often been portrayed as a role model to young girls, I do wish she had spent more time on edits with this song. But what gave me the ick more than anything was the vocals. Swift sang the first chorus, “I ain’t gotta knock on wood,” in such a scandalous voice that I laughed out loud (and also rolled my eyes). And the voice crack on “His love was the key” made me giggle a little too much.
If Swift had spent more time reworking the intention in her vocals and lyrics before stepping into the recording studio, I think this could’ve been a standout record. As it is, this album feels rushed. Although I’m not a fan of Swift’s music, I can admit that she’s usually an excellent songwriter. (Once, in a scriptwriting class, we analyzed “Out of the Woods” because that song is creative genius.) But she fell flat with the lyricism of “The Life of a Showgirl.”
I’m fascinated by the phenomenon that Swift has become. She has created such high standards for herself to maintain that I’m surprised she didn’t rework some of the songs, since it seems this record hasn’t resonated with most fans. But at the end of the day, I can honor the fact that art is art. However, this record fell short for me.
