TikTok was a great place to be on the day “The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore” dropped. Well, TikTok is a great place to be in general; it’s a daily reunion of the world’s biggest haters gathered in a comment section. It’s a blast, truly.
And look, I’m not going to state that I don’t like Taylor’s music: I do. “Folklore” changed my life, “Evermore” ascended me, “Midnights” carried me through the roughest parts of high school, and “The Tortured Poets Department” crushed my 16-year-old heart.
Taylor, however, lost me somewhere along the release of her Taylor’s Versions albums. Whether it was a money grab or not, that’s what it started to feel like to me. I was constantly bombarded with announcements, posters, and ads. I listened to them, I enjoyed them, but I lost enthusiasm for new releases.
But when “The Life of a Showgirl” was announced, I was very excited. It promptly turned into disappointment when the album was released. To be honest, I managed to listen to the first three songs of the album before I had to take a mental break. Safe to say I wasn’t a fan.
The situation begs the question: How did we get from comparing Taylor Swift to Shakespeare to me needing to take three songs into an album?
The problem isn’t that Taylor Swift changed. Artists change. The problem is that the standards surrounding Taylor’s music haven’t changed. Taylor doesn’t have to recreate “Folklore” for her music to be good; she just has to make me believe in what she’s singing about again. Her best writing wasn’t good because it was complicated; it was good because it was specific.
A lot of the songs in “The Life of a Showgirl” are about her being in love, but they are the blandest love songs I’ve ever heard. It seems harsh, but it’s not dishonest. Taylor can write love songs; for whatever reason, now she isn’t writing them well.
The problem is that the love songs on “The Life of a Showgirl” rarely feel like they belong to anyone in particular. They could be about anyone, written by anyone, and sung to anyone. There are declarations of love, references to romance, and plenty of lines that are supposed to make you believe Taylor is deeply in love, but very little that makes me understand why she loves this person.
Take “Babylon” from “The Encore,” for example. “You never knew that it was Babylon / ’Til it was gone.” Compare that with “Cowboy Like Me” from “Evermore.” “Now you hang from my lips / Like the Gardens of Babylon.” The latter isn’t memorable because Taylor mentions Babylon. It’s memorable because the comparison actually tells us something. The relationship feels precarious, complicated, almost doomed. The image has a purpose. “Babylon” just feels like a reference for reference’s sake.
Another memorable song from “The Life of a Showgirl” is “Wood.” Now, listen. Taylor is a grown woman. If she wants to write about her sex life, I’m all for it. But do it well. We went from “Dress” in 2018 to “Wood” in 2025, and it left me spiraling. I understand that being in love is a wonderful experience. I am happy for Taylor. Truly. Congratulations. Unfortunately, I do not need to hear about it like this.
Taylor Swift has spent years establishing herself as one of the best songwriters of her generation. People compare her to Shakespeare. They dissect her lyrics, search for hidden meanings, analyze every metaphor and reference. They treat every album like it is going to change the course of history. I understand why. She has written songs that deserve that level of attention.
But that reputation cannot exist independently from the music she is making now. If we are going to hold Taylor to the standard of a songwriter who can turn something as a rebound relationship into a story worth dissecting, then I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect her music to give us something to dissect.
At some point, being a Taylor Swift fan stops meaning that you have to defend everything she does. I can love “Folklore,” “Evermore,” and “The Tortured Poets Department,” and still admit when something doesn’t work. In fact, I think liking her music is exactly why I can be disappointed by it.
And this is really the problem I keep running into with “The Life of a Showgirl.” Taylor seems to have forgotten that subtlety is allowed.
In the words of Adele, “Divorce, babe, divorce.”
Featured image: Betty Cavicchia’28
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