Taylor Swift, once the victim of a tortured poet, is now dancing under an opalite sky and making jokes about Travis Kelce’s “redwood.” How far we’ve come! Swift released her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, on Friday and it has a little bit of everything. The kind of beautiful, simple lyrics that made Swift a billionaire are situated right next to lines about “girlbossing too close to the sun” and “looking fire.” So, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
After a few listens, some Cut staffers got together to dive into The Life of a Showgirl and get to the bottom of a few things. Is the Charli XCX diss track “Actually Romantic” a misfire, or does it have its redeeming qualities? Did Swift’s reunion with super-producers Max Martin and Shellback inspire a return to the highs of 1989 and Reputation? Read on to learn all of our answers, plus where this album finds itself in our Taylor Swift rankings.
Olivia Craighead, news writer: Before we get into the album, I want to take everyone’s Taylor temperature. How have you been feeling about her and the album rollout over the past month and a half?
Julia Reinstein, morning blogger: I am an admitted Swiftie, but I gotta say, I had a bad feeling about this album. It all just felt kind of … I don’t know … super-commercial?
Cat Zhang, culture writer: I have her name muted on X and wish I could do that across all social-media platforms and news outlets. It is just not the time! The government shutdown two days ago and I have to hear about Travis Kelce’s “wood”?
Andrea González-Ramirez, senior writer: I was excited when she announced the album — God knows I need joy these days. But the rollout with its endless countdowns and merch made me increasingly cranky at her. It was too much.
Olivia: I just wish she would at least give us a single if she’s going to just drop vinyl variant after vinyl variant. Let the people hear something first!
Hanna Flanagan, shopping editor: The album rollout actually didn’t bother me as much as it did everyone else. I feel it was the cash-grab thing she always does.
Olivia: Okay, so what are everyone’s gut reactions to the album? I want highs, lows, and oh nos. Let’s start with highs.
Julia: “Ruin the Friendship.” Oof. Felt really real — this is what I love Taylor for, her storytelling and earnestness. That reveal toward the end was a genuine gut punch.
Danya Issawi, fashion news writer: “Opalite.”
Andrea: High for me are the first three songs and “Ruin the Friendship.”
Cat: I like “Honey,” which sounds like a Mariah Carey song. “Father Figure,” though distasteful if you’re paying attention to the meta-narrative, is pretty compelling. Her Tár song! One of my many problems with this album is that despite its showgirl concept, it lacks bravado. She led us to believe this would be Reputation 2 and it’s not. Reputation was the first time she owned her power, as opposed to playing the injured little girl, and I liked how she inhabited this manipulative Machiavellian character. So that’s what I see in “Father Figure” — except she’s actually just punching down in the song.
Olivia: Lows?
Julia: “Actually Romantic.” Obvious answer. Gotta say, bad take here, Tay — feels pretty mean and short-sighted to do a diss track about “Sympathy Is a Knife,” a very vulnerable song about hating someone because you feel inferior to them and also feeling very bad about that!
Hanna: I also think her world view has not evolved much since Reputation. In her mind, she’ll always be the high-school loser, the girl who was publicly humiliated by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, the girl who got taken advantage of by industry execs, etc. Even now, during the most commercially successful period of her life when she is the most universally liked she’s ever been and seemingly in the happiest, most healthy relationship of her life, she still thinks she’s the victim. It’s evident in so many of these songs and that story line is t-i-r-e-d. Of course her traumatic experiences have shaped her perspective as an artist, but at some point I hope she can see herself differently and live in the present.
Olivia: “Actually Romantic,” while I think it’s mean-spirited and betrays a lack of critical-thinking skills, is one of my highs! I love the guitar-forward sound and you can hear that she’s having fun. It’s like a Weezer song.
Danya: The beat was a bop, but the lyrics were so … like I get being hurt by the biggest pop sensation of the past year (sorry), but Charli’s song was about how Charli felt in Taylor’s shadow, Taylor was a mirror to Charli that brought forth her insecurities, Taylor’s clapback was like, “You do coke, dirty bitch!!!!”
Hanna: I think the bad parts of this album are a product of people being scared to critique her, post-cancellation. The entire world has told her she’s a flawless songwriter for years, and we let her get away with lyrics like “I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists.” This is a woman who thrives off criticism, and in the past, has improved her craft because of it. Some of the writing on this album feels like a regression for her, and I think she would really benefit from some constructive criticism at this point in her career.
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Olivia: What made you go, “Oh no …”?
Hanna: When she said “looks fire” and “bad bitch” in the same breath.
Julia: “Wood.” I cannot believe she’s doing sexual innuendos about her fiancé’s podcast now.
Danya: My general reaction to the album is that it felt like it was written by someone who programmed an AI to sound like Taylor. It lacked interiority and did the thing J101 teachers kept trying to drill in my head: Show, don’t tell. Taylor did a lot of telling.
Olivia: When Taylor is really good, it’s usually because she’s written some really sharp lyrics. Are there any lines that jumped out at you on the first few listens?
Julia: I think the bridge on “Eldest Daughter” is genuinely beautiful.
Andrea: I enjoyed “Eldest Daughter” more than I thought I would. Some of the lyrics hurt me. “When your first crush crushes something kind” brought back such a specific memory that I had buried. Just stab me next time, Taylor. That’ll hurt less!!!
Olivia: I love the line on that one that goes, “When I said I don’t believe in marriage / That was a lie.”
Danya: “Mistake my kindness for weakness and find your card is cancelled” [from “Father Figure”]. Like, yeah tea don’t fuck with me tbh. I can’t cancel your card but I can mentally cancel you!
Olivia: Cat, going back to what you were saying about Reputation, this is her big reunion with Max Martin and Shellback. How does it compare to 1989 and Rep for you guys?
Cat: I’m surprised by how musically low-key it is. There isn’t the synth glitter and big hooks of 1989. The songs on 1989 were so compact, in a great way. “And when we go crashing down / We come back every time / Because we never go out of style” — like that’s a whole story in three lines.
Julia: I loved 1989 and Rep. I really had high hopes for the Martin and Shellback reunion and I’m left feeling like … What happened?
Olivia: Right? There’s no “Style” or “Blank Space” here.
Danya: I didn’t like Rep and I didn’t like this tonally or lyrically so … I never thought I would say this, but let’s get Jack Antonoff back in there.
Olivia: For years I have been saying that she needs a producer who isn’t a man. I want the Taylor album that’s produced by, like, MUNA.
Cat: Imogen Heap doesn’t want to produce right now, but where is St. Vincent? Get her back into the studio.
Olivia: We have to talk about Travis, sorry! She seems to be pretty explicitly talking about their sex life on “Wood.” How did you guys feel hearing about Travis’s “magic wand” and “redwood”?
Danya: You know what, good for her. I think most men would love the concept of having a song explicitly written about their dicks.
Cat: If I were a man, I would want my penis to be written about with some sort of subtlety. But that’s just me! I thought about “False God,” a ten-times better song about getting fucked good by your man.
Olivia: I think “Wood” is actually the most fun song on the album, maybe because it’s a total Jackson 5 knock off.
Cat: I would agree that “Wood” is one of the more musically compelling songs on the album, which is kind of damning — the best dish she’s serving is reheated nachos?
Olivia: What is going on with the “showgirl” aspect? Did you guys feel that on the album or did she just want to do a fun photo shoot for the cover? I actually think if you want to get a sense of what “the life of a showgirl” is like, The Tortured Poets Department is a better portrait.
Andrea: I was like that meme of Mr. Bean looking around, trying to find the showgirl of it all. One of my friends said that if she hadn’t done TTPD, this album may have been better. Some of the songs there — “Clara Bow,” “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” etc. — fit within this concept!
Danya: I feel like the showgirl concept was, “Ugh, all these people are talking about me!!!”
Olivia: Where is this slotting in everyone’s album rankings? I can’t tell if I like it more or less than Midnights, but it’s somewhere in that lower tier.
Julia: Midnights is far from her best album, but I think it’s miles beyond this album.
Andrea: It’s definitely on the lower third of the list for me, but I may change my mind. I hated TTPD on first listen, and then it grew on me. Maybe the same will happen here! What can I say? I’m a clown, just like her.
Danya: Same, Andrea, I need to listen a few times. It’s very catchy and I’m bobbing my head, but I don’t feel seen in this nor do I see Taylor for real, which is maybe an indictment of fame altogether. The more famous she gets, the less she wants to talk about interior things and wants to talk about what’s in front of her as a form of protection, conscious or not. But this isn’t my favorite, definitely in the lower third, below folklore, evermore, Red, 1989.
Cat: I do not acknowledge Midnights, The Tortured Poets Department, or this album. I encourage everyone to do a Jake Gyllenhaal and play “some indie record that’s much cooler than [Taylor’s].”
