taylor swift's 'Showgirl' is a generational fumble (football pun INTENDED)
I am a middle-of-the-road millennial, and increasingly I catch myself having more and more “we used to drink from the hose” moments. We used to take group photos and make silly faces — it wasn’t cool to try to look hot. We used to choose what music we wanted to listen to, placing the songs lovingly onto devices dedicated exclusively to music. We used to drink tall cans of juice that had caffeine AND alcohol in it, and it made us act craaazzzzyy.
Taylor Swift put out a new album and I didn't really like it but every time she puts out a new album, I remember that I do really like other Taylor Swift albums, and so I put on Red or Reputation and reminisce. In this way, the song machine keeps running. Like Oreos releasing new freakish flavors, repelling you whilst reminding you of the yumminess of original Oreo. Chocolate cookies, cream filling, delicious.
Molly Mary O’Brien
After The Life of a Showgirl bricked for me, I played folklore because I was chilling with my sleepy newborn baby daughter and it seemed like chill newborn baby music. And it was. It’s also, I think, Taylor Swift’s chillest record lyrically. Everything is wispy and gauzy and pleasantly blurry. Even the breakup songs have a soft, sweet distance. Taylor said she drank a lot of wine during the pandemic and I can kind of tell by how the lyrics sound. You can forgive anyone and anything after two glasses of a dry red.
Showgirl’s promo made much of the renewed collaboration with Max Martin and Shellback. Those Swedish guys aided and abetted some of her zestiest hits. I think some of the gen pop’s disappointment with the album stems from the lack of "Blank Space"s, of "22"s, of "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"s. Is that a we-used-to-drink-from-the-hose desire? Can millennials go home again?
What do Taylor Swift’s most undeniable hits have in common? A sense of eyes in the back of one’s head. An awareness of haters, of harsh societal expectations. An “I’ll show you, I’ll show ALL of you” vibe. Dare I say, a brattiness. "Blank Space" satirizes her reputation as Overly Attached Girlfriend, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" couches an irritation with one’s status in the critical canon ("some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine") in what’s supposed to be a fuck-off-dude anthem, and "22" does the same ("too many cool kids…'Who’s Taylor Swift anyway?'") in what's supposed to be a slammin’ youthful hoedown.
Back to millennial hose drinking. TS is the most millennial artist in history. She is walking away with the title. She is the perpetually dissatisfied girlboss, the success daughter who keeps bagging failsons and getting upset about it. She is feeling her oats but she can’t stop looking at tagged photos of her ex’s new girl. She is WHINY. Remember, that was the problem with millennials? We were so whiny when the economy collapsed, when the student loans were due. Whiny and self-obsessed, somehow totally hypnotized by phones way shittier than the phones we have now. But it's fun to whine, and fun to hear someone else whine, if the melody is sticky enough.
We liked all those older songs, as a society. The numbers do not lie. But I don’t think Taylor has moved on from the worst bits of millennial mindset, and it’s getting hard to justify. She’s several orders of magnitude more successful than she was a decade ago and she’s still looking over her shoulder. Others want Balenciaga sunglasses—not me, I just want football babies. People are so awful about me online… I mean, I’m not online and I don’t care, I really don’t, please don’t put in the newspaper that I cared. Charli XCX is talking shit about me and that’s fine, I’m actually rather horny about it.
Molly Mary O’Brien
There is finally a sense of fatigue about this attitude, not a moment too soon. I will be the first to promote millennialmaxxing, aka the embracing of the positive attributes of my generation…ooo is that the sound of “Paper Planes” wafting in? Finger guns up!!...but there are attributes we must let go of. The vaguebooking, the surface-level feminism, the performative misandry, the incessant banging of the nostalgia gong (truly we are the children of boomers). You can’t act like a pick me without possessing a single reason to get picked. You can’t call your album nothing but bangers* if you don’t know what a banger is. Brat at least knew this. "Sympathy Is A Knife" was honest about it feels to have your insecurities tapped: it feels like shit, it makes Charli want to buy a gun, which I understand is hard to do in England. And bonus, it BANGED. It's okay to just admit that you're jealous of someone, just admit it with some flair, some joie de vivre. "Cringe" is overused overall but that's what I was doing during my Showgirl listen. It turns out you CAN girlboss too close to the sun, especially if you tell everyone about it.
*to be fair, the Kelce brothers seem to be the ones who instigated the "bangers" discourse but Taylor did not deny it!
Thanks for reading I Enjoy Music! If you like it, tell a friend.
