Controversies of Taylor Swift: Life of a Showgirl
Taylor Swift just released her album The Life of a Showgirl, and there are many different ways to approach this album. Britney believes that Taylor Swift worked hard for her success, having her lyrics express a deeper meaning of her past, future, success, relationships, and family. Her lyrics are also creative, relatable (to most people), and catchy. Nicole believes that her new album is shallow and could've touched deeper subjects if written by a 5th grader. You would think that after doing this for so long she would’ve developed and matured, but this album proved her lack of maturity and depth in her lyrics.
Creative and Catchy
Taylor’s album has been something every Swiftie was anticipating. Now that it’s released it’s been on repeat for its catchy beat and meaningful lyrics. Taylor has been writing her own songs since she was 12, she also started co-writing lyrics in her later years of success. It took her roughly 8 years to be a popstar, working hard for her title, success, and popularity. Unfortunately she had to face many challenges of wrongful accusations, backlash, and keeping up with a certain image.
In her song “Honey” it is about how she had to face discrimination, negative, or vulgar compliments, and scrutiny against her own body. People may think her lyrics are “dull” and since she’s rich and successful she doesn’t struggle like the rest of us, but they don’t listen to the actual lyrics. One lyric says “They were saying that skirt don't fit me and I cried the whole way home” showing that people’s comments actually affect her, but she disguised it as a love song about Travis Kelce, her fiancé.
Taylor is a showgirl after all she knows how to keep her audience entertained. Speaking of entertaining; her last track “The Life of a Showgirl” simplifies the hardships of fame and the music industry. The character “Kitty” who is a showgirl warning young Taylor she’s never going to want to know the true hardships. In the lyrics “You don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe. And you’re never gonna wanna!” This shows underlying tones that once you know the hardships you don’t want other people to suffer through them. The song currently has 384 million streams in just 5 days so those “lazy lyrics” don't hurt her pockets.
Overall The Life of a Showgirl album breaks Spotify's most streamed album in a single day, to me that screams success. Taylor didn’t need a song going viral for her music to be streamed by millions. People anticipated listening to what they hoped would be her next hit album, and even haters listened to it just to criticize. In the end these unemployed haters who have nothing better to do than hate on a popstar that’s much more successful then they’d ever be.
Simplistic and Shallow
Selling a new album has probably never been easier for a pop star such as Taylor Swift. With “catchy” rhythms and “relatable” topics, not to mention all of her previous hype. But, to be honest, this album would've been better if written by a child. She tries to talk about “deep” subjects but she appears to carry the weight of no real problems. The two songs that actually had potential, “Father Figure” and “Eldest Daughter,” she sold by gesturing towards emotional depth and then never bothered explaining it. Which she tends to do throughout the whole album. She dances around uncomfortable subjects just to keep her music mainstream and catchy.
This is the only reason Taylor is even popular. She only knows how to market herself correctly and blend in with what is popular at the moment. Take a look at the song Tweaker by Gelo for example. This song had over 120 million listens due to going viral on social media. Even with mediocre albums like this one, she still makes billions. The only thing getting stuck in my head about this song is how lazy and immature her lyrics were. She didn't have to sacrifice lyrics for rhythm, thousands of artists have both just fine. If she isn’t capable of doing both should she even be an artist?
No matter how many times I hear about her “depth”, all I can think about is how simplistic and easy her music is. In one song, “The Life of a Showgirl” she literally rhymes “city”, “kitty”, “pretty” and “witty”. She only used words with two syllables. English seriously cannot be that hard. This just shows the genuine carelessness for how her songs come off as. She also carelessly uses profanity and touches on vulgar topics even while knowing her fanbase is widely children and teens.
She also complains about problems that I wish I had. So unrelatable to anyone that isn't a rich person or a pre-teen girl. In “Honey” she writes the lyrics, “They were saying that skirts don't fit me and I cried the whole way home.” I honestly wish that one of my worst problems was crying over whether or not my skirt fit. Acting like she can’t afford to go buy another one. In “The Life of a Showgirl”, she starts to complain about her chosen profession. She has no room to complain about making billions of dollars and apparently having “struggles”. What exactly did she go through? Unlike many artists she was quite literally handed a record deal. Her parents were rich and her father worked for and owned part of the company that signed her. She talks about struggles she never dealt with yet she describes it like she has.
To be honest, she should stick to heartbreak and focus on teenagers as her audience, because this “depth” she is trying to add to her music is not meant for her. She should just leave it to a real artist to bring up real problems.
In my opinion, maturing is realizing Taylor Swift complains about having an amazing life. The only reason her songs have any depth is because her fans come up with the meanings on their own. This is evident with them finding “hidden” or “underlying” meanings and doing most of the work for Taylor. It really comes down to music taste.
