On Taylor Swift, Age...and Liberation.

(Please don't come for me.)

Before politics, I got my start writing about popular culture: art, movies, and music, mainly. My first piece of published writing was an album review for my college newspaper. It was terrible, I’m sure. (The writing, not the album.)

Part of me wishes I’d stuck to entertainment, rather than diverting into what would become a career in politics. Instead of covering the fetid, dystopian hellscape that is American government today, and a ghoulish cast of characters that inspire decreasing confidence in the survival of our democracy, eliciting death threats and petulant tweets from the boorish President of the United States, I could be writing glossy fluff pieces about a new movie or the latest streamer, interviewing the cast of “The Pitt” or Noah Kahan. That sounds really nice right now.

But this week, with the government shutdown and nothing at all of note happening in politics (I kid), I found myself falling down an unexpected rabbit hole of Taylor Swift “The Life of a Showgirl” reviews – mainly because they are everywhere, and this seems to be what everyone else who isn’t charged with translating Trump’s clownish edicts is talking about.

I’ve probably read every critical review and watched every amateur and fan review on TikTok. Not because I’m a fan myself, but because it became addicting in a way I didn’t anticipate.

Let me be very clear, and say this at the outset: I am not a Taylor Swift hater.

Let me repeat that for all of the Swifties: I AM NOT A TAYLOR SWIFT HATER.

So please don’t come for me. I can deal with the hate mail I get from MAGA, but nobody needs THAT kind of heat.

Let me also state for the record, I think Taylor Swift is lovely. I think she’s talented. I think she’s a good role model for girls in a world with increasingly very few. And I think she’s navigated fame, politics, the music industry, and, for what it’s worth, her love life, expertly. She deserves all the awards, all the plaudits, all the admiration.

With all that said – again I AM NOT A TAYLOR SWIFT HATER – the truth is, if I weren’t constantly bombarded by Taylor Swift content in my gossip rags, in the sports sections, on social media, and in the ACTUAL news, I wouldn’t think about Taylor Swift that often, or at all.

That’s for the same reason I no longer dress up on Halloween, collect Labubus, or forget to wash off my makeup:

Because I’m 46 years old.

More on that in a minute.

For years it’s felt imperative – MANDATORY – that as a white woman, I had to follow and invest in Swift’s every move, every album, every Easter egg, every tour, every award show performance, every interview, every new boyfriend, every ex-boyfriend, every new friend, every friend fallout, every new record-setting career moment.

“Are you going to see Taylor?”
“Did you hear the new Taylor album?”

“Did you see who Taylor’s dating?”

Grown women would ask me these things occasionally, to which I would stare back in total bewilderment and then reply, sheepishly, “No?”

Once the Eras Tour hit, it was impossible to escape total Swift saturation. For 149 shows, over the course of more than A YEAR AND A HALF, Taylor’s performances, wardrobe changes, set lists, dance numbers, friendship bracelets, celebrity attendees, and ticket drama dominated…well, everything.

Then she met the very animated Travis Kelce. Suddenly, she was on TV at Kansas City Chiefs games, and their burgeoning (and admittedly adorable) relationship took over spaces not usually permeated by pop stars.

Then there was the Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni lawsuit, which sparked a rift in their longtime friendship (Taylor and Blake’s, that is) and suddenly THAT news was everywhere.

While politics is NEVER a place I go to escape from anything but sanity, even the 2024 election was no refuge from Swift stories, as her endorsement of Kamala Harris became an actual news cycle, and MAGA weirdos decided for a minute that she was a deep-state psy-op.

This may have been great for Swifties – it’s like having a favorite show that never takes a hiatus or gets cancelled, it’s just new episodes ALL. THE. TIME. But for the rest of us, it was overload.

This isn’t her fault. Her over-saturation is the result of her immense success, popularity, and influence over so many areas of our life. She shouldn’t have to dim her light or miss opportunities just to give us all a break. (Though, there might be some PR value in giving her fans a chance to miss her once in a while, just sayin’.)

But now, with her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” dropping just about a month after announcing her engagement to Kelce, it doesn’t look like a break is on the horizon. The engagement news will be followed by months of wedding-planning speculation, just as the new album will be followed by months of promotion and possibly even another tour.

I’m not mad at this. She’s living her life as the world’s biggest pop star, and all that comes with it. She’s allowed to go on her boyfriend’s podcast. She’s allowed to post her engagement photo on Instagram. She’s allowed to release a new album. She’s allowed to celebrate all her milestones publicly and loudly. I absolutely love that she’s not living a paranoid or clandestine life due to her fame – she wears her immense celebrity refreshingly lightly.

But with the new album is coming something new – criticism.

Not everywhere, to be sure. Rolling Stone has given it 5 out of 5 stars and VERY much looks like it was paid to promote it.

But for seemingly the first time, the reactions to Swift’s newest creation are mixed. And that’s being generous.

And not just from a few daring detractors. Hop on Tik Tok for five minutes and you’ll see THOUSANDS of videos that begin the same way: “I am a huge Swifty…but….”

You can read some of the reviews here, here, and here.

The critiques are varied, pointed at lyrics that seem either lazy or too crass for Taylor, or at songs that sound like other peoples’ songs, or for just being boring and lackluster. I’m in no position to judge this album or any other of hers, so I won’t.

But one critic said, “Undoubtedly, ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ will be looked back on as a glaring misstep and stain on Swift’s career.”

I doubt that, but it doesn’t seem poised to win any awards this go-round – also unusual for Swift.

Because, AGAIN, I’m not a Taylor Swift hater, this brings me no pleasure. I have no vested interest in whether her projects are well-received or not, and I generally wish people well in all they do.

But, I’ll admit, it does bring some curiosity. And more importantly, relief.

With the critiques of her latest endeavor comes a bit of liberation for folks like me – women who have not been captivated by Swift’s music or persona seemingly against all odds and despite enormous peer pressure to embrace and obsess over her.

It is indeed liberating to be able to be honest about her music, finally, now that her own fans have given permission to do so, which isn’t to say her music is bad, but to say the thing that should be very obvious to everyone and has been obvious for years: her music is not meant for adults.

For years I’ve said, mostly privately and to friends I can trust with my life, that Swift isn’t writing music for me, a woman of 46. She wasn’t writing music for me when I was 36 or 26 either. Whatever genre she’s existed in, she’s always written songs for tweens and teens. This shouldn’t be a controversial thing to say, but it definitely feels like it is.

But there’s no shame in it, and it’s easy to see why she does. She was 13 when she signed her first record deal; she wrote songs about high school, cheer captains, her best friend Abigail, mean people, and boys.

And as she grew up, she continued to write songs about her life, which, because of her immense early success, understandably weren’t about going to college, getting a job, or paying bills. They weren’t about fighting in a war, starting a revolution, or social injustice. They were mostly about being a massive pop singer, and boys.

That’s fine, too. As a writer myself, I know one thing above all else: you write what you know. And this is what she knows. For tweens and teens, it’s what they know as well.

Jewel could write about being homeless and living in her car. Tina Turner could write about being abused by her husband. Nina Simone could write about racism. It’s what they knew. (Incidentally, they also wrote about love and heartbreak, universal themes that make for great love songs and breakup songs.)

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing about love and breakups. That’s pop music, and I’ve never considered pop a sub genre – it’s great at what it is.

I was in my mid-20s when Swift broke into our collective consciousness. I’d graduated college, lived through 9/11, gotten a masters degree, and was writing at the New York Times when she was singing songs about high school. I admired her talent at such a young age, but never felt as though she were singing to or for me. Because she wasn’t.

Later, huge hits like “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space” – which debuted when I was in my 30s and a working mom – about brushing off her “haters” and her dating history were perfectly drawn for a teenager’s ear. To me, they sounded like nursery rhymes.

She also has an impressive and relentless talent for titillating her fans. But scavenging for Easter eggs in her videos, her social media, and her songs, decoding what her braids mean or which ex-boyfriend she’s singing about, while a perfect device to captivate young girls, isn’t an adult enterprise.

Taylor is 35 now, and still writing about boys and friends and ex-friends. Her latest album feels especially teen-coded, with songs featuring apparent references to her fiancee’s genitalia, lyrics about high school, and what her fans assume is a diss track pointed at Charlie XCX. She’s allowed to do all of this, it’s a formula that totally works for her.

But we are also allowed to outgrow her music, or admit we were never into it in the first place. We are allowed to stop pretending this music is for adults. Aren’t we?

I’m not ignoring the fact that parents enjoy listening to her music with their kids. I can completely appreciate the appeal of music you can listen to with your young daughters or sons, and Taylor’s music, with all of its windows-down, singalong-ability, is perfect for that.

But the other day, I watched an actress on TikTok gush over song lyrics like, “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?” Silly posturing, bordering on cringe. She is 50 years old. But I get how it can feel like necessary posturing in a world where you must love it. All.

I don’t question that plenty of Boomers, Gen-Xers and elder millennials genuinely do. The legions of adult, childless fans dressing up and sporting friendship bracelets at her concerts tell that story. And while it’s not for me, I can see how escaping into a childlike world of Lisa Frank trapper keepers, glitter freckles, and who’s-dating-who can be, very simply, a joyous experience. It isn’t deep, it isn’t dark, and it isn’t disturbing. Sounds nice.

But it also isn’t mature. Again, that’s not meant derisively, but honestly. Lyrics like “​Redwood tree, it ain’t hard to see/His love was the key that opened my thighs” aren’t supposed to resonate with or titillate a 46-year-old woman. And that’s okay.

Because whether “The Life of a Showgirl” ends up being a flop or not is none of my business. And that’s the point – it shouldn’t be.

Now, get off my lawn.