Taylor Swift entertained kids for too long, this time she’s entertaining herself
What a relief!
Image: The Choice of a Model | Artist: Mariano Fortuny Marsal | Date: 1868-1874
I know pop music because I’ve been consuming it, digesting it and alchemizing it my whole life. All 36 years of it. When it comes to Taylor Swift, she was never at the forefront of my rabid pop music consumption, I knew she was there from her get go, I knew we had the same birthday year (1989), and I was aware of every release, music video and flutter of chatter about her personal life, still she was never on my playlist rotations.
I probably knew a lot more about her than the average music consumer because my twin sister became a Taylor Swift fan the second she heard “Love Story” for the first time, a song that I quite enjoy myself, so I was being fed information about her career at times against my will.
I was also on Tumblr at the same time as Taylor, and was on Twitter during the oughts when artists were using it to directly communicate with their audience, so I know the “lore”. As a generation, we were (and are) witnessing historical events yearly, including but not limited to pop music’s greatest output of releases. I mean, being in a nightclub between the great pop years of 2007-2009 was both a privilege and a curse because I know I’ll never experience that thrill again (don’t worry, in Brazil the legal drinking age is 18, so I was in the clear). (don’t tell my mom about all the clubbing and partying I did at 16 and 17, though)
The main thing that always kept me from clicking with Taylor Swift’s work was the fact that I thought she was too childish, but a huge rift truly occurred when she released her album “Lover”. I was truly appalled at how juvenile it sounded, by the time that album was released, I was 30 years old and Taylor was fast approaching that mark herself, at that point in time I had already consumed “Lemonade” by Beyoncé, “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga, and by God “Blackout” by Britney Spears was (and still is) on my rotation. So imagine my reaction when I heard “Me!” By Ms. Swift ft. Brendon Urie.
You actually don’t need to imagine it, I’ll tell you. My reaction was visceral. I was physically ill, and I could not understand what I was seeing/hearing: a bubble gum rainbow music video with a preschool song. I… I… I couldn’t believe it, Lady Gaga had delivered the same message much more effectively years prior, I was on the Monster Tour, I saw a whole stadium crying while dancing to the title track song “Born this Way”, I screamed the lyrics hugging my friends, so when Taylor shoved “Me!” and “You need to calm down” down my throat I was almost offended.
I saw my sister trying to grapple with the “Lover” album, trying to make sense of it, she gave it a shot, but even a die hard fan couldn’t really defend the roll out, at that point in my life I was already married, I had been trying to get pregnant for two years, and by the exact time of the release me and my husband were selling everything we had and saying goodbye to the life we knew to immigrate to Canada. My sister, also 30 at the time, had already been an immigrant in Canada for about 4 years; she was not married or was thinking about having kids like me, but she sure as hell was in a very different place from what “Lover” was trying to offer. My sister had relied on Taylor’s lyricism to make sense of her own life, so she was flying without a parachute.
As pop enthusiasts we were used to see our Divas growing up with their fans, but as Taylor’s career progressed, older fans realized that she was in a different trajectory, she would stay catering to the young, even when more mature work came out during the pandemic with “Folklore” and “Evermore” she released her acoustic version/ mini documentary on Disney+ and when talking about the heavier subject matters on those albums she insisted they were characters she had created, distancing her personal image from any growth or mistake she could’ve made.
With the incredible The Eras Tour, you could see in the audience thousands of young kids, preteens and young teens flooding the stadiums. At the concert I attended here in Toronto, we saw an actual baby cloaked in noise-cancelling headphones in attendance and a little girl sitting right behind me, making me think about my own little girl fast asleep at home. The Eras Tour was a family affair, leaps and bounds different from the Renaissance Tour I went to in the year prior. I loved both concerts, but Beyoncé’s mature body of work was a stark contrast to Taylor’s teenage dream. Both were fun in very different ways.
Taylor’s break from the bubble gum, kid-friendly approach actually started on her prior release with “The Tortured Poets Department,” but with the annoying and incessant “Easter Egg” hunt, it is hard not to compare all her releases with children’s games. Still, in that album, she seemed to be saying things she hadn’t allowed herself to say before; most even agree that the album lacked editing and a bit of restraint, but Taylor had things to get out of her chest.
Taylor’s mature approach is more realized in her latest release, “The Life of a Showgirl”. This one is, in fact, a very different album from her, from how she announced it to the rollout to the songs to the lyrics. A lot of her young fans have their little heads spinning. Track 9, especially, is keeping people up at night. “Wood” is a very fun song that some are calling tacky, some say it’s cringe, others call it embarrassing, but for me, it’s a relief.
Taylor has entertained kids for far too long; now she’s finally entertaining herself. At this point in time, my sister, Taylor and I are all nearing our 40s; she’s now engaged, but unlike all of her counterparts, Taylor was never explicit about that side of her womanhood.
You know what’s embarrassing? “Ego” by Beyoncé. Cringe? “Side to Side” by Ariana Grande. “Wood” is an amazing pop song, fun, light, and contagious. And a much-needed music release for Taylor Swift's catalogue. She brought Shellback and Max Martin back to make pop, and as a rule, especially with Swedish Pop, the lyrics are always an afterthought. We love that pop, we cherish it, frankly, we miss that pop. Give me “If U Seek Amy” by Britney Spears, or the slightly problematic “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry, and I’ll give you a good time.
But with Taylor’s body of work, the expectation is that her lyrics have to be so detailed, intricate and elevated that you would need an English degree to understand them. How caging that must be for an artist? She needs to always write like Shakespeare while appealing to every child in the world AND maintaining a pristine, perfect girl image.
Exhausting. Impossible. Unfair. “The Life of a Showgirl” is her best album in a long time because she’s finally breaking free from all of it; she can and will write silly lyrics, she will be sexual, and she doesn’t care if you want to cancel her either. And to that I say BRAVA TAYLOR! What a joy to finally see you arrive here.
After almost 20 years of career, 12 albums (and many other re-recorded ones), The Eras Tour and a tad annoying album roll-out, Taylor has finally won me over with “The Life of a Showgirl”, she’s relatable, dumb in-love (not to be confused with drunk-in-love but I wouldn’t put it pass her), she’s silly, she’s having fun and she doesn’t care what you or your kids will think about it. That’s exactly where she’s meant to be; she now sits in the Pantheon, right next to “Kiss” by Prince.