Some Swifties like The Life of a Showgirl and some Swifties are already over it. I’ve been enjoying the critiques from Taylor’s fans and her biggest critics, and it feels like something has really shifted in the fanbase this time. One of the critiques is that “Taylor is obviously really happy with Travis Kelce, and that’s why the music sucks now.” That’s not even Taylor-specific! So many times, when a songstress is known for making sad songs or love songs about yearning and pain, their music sort of suffers when they fall in love or find happiness in their personal lives. In Taylor’s case, the argument is that Travis is a “bad muse” for her, and that this relationship is not bringing out her best lyricism or writing. I’m going to stay out of any further analysis on that, but I will say this – it’s really nice to see Taylor in a relationship which makes her happy, and that she can talk about openly. And she’s been talking a lot about Travis during her TLOAS promo.
During an appearance on The Scott Mills Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2, host Mills, 51, asked the “Opalite” singer, 35, about some of her fans saying they think her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, is her last and that she will retire from making music once she and fiancé Travis Kelce tie the knot.
“Taylor, don’t tell me this is your last album?” Mills asked. “What? No,” Swift responded, to which Mills explained, “I just saw some fans going, ‘Well, she’s going to get married and then she’s going to have children and then she’s going to be the last album.’ ”
Swift laughed, noting that the sentiment is “a shockingly offensive thing to say. It’s not why people get married. So that they can quit their job. It’s also like music for me is…”
“I think the fans were just panicking,” Mills added.
“Oh, I know they love to panic sometimes, but it’s like I love the person that I am with because he loves what I do and he loves how much I am fulfilled by making art and making music,” Swift explained. “That’s the coolest thing about Travis, like he’s so, he is so passionate about what he does, that me being passionate about what I do, it connects us. There’s no point in time where he’s gonna be like, ‘I’m really upset that you’re still making the music. The music thing that I signed up for that I knew you love, I thought you were gonna stop doing that.’ We both, as a living, as a job, as a passion, perform for three and a half hours in NFL stadiums. We both do three and a half hour shows to entertain people. When I’m in those stadiums, it’s a dressing room, but when he’s in those exact same stadiums, it’s a locker room.”
“For him, it’s practice. For me, it’s rehearsal. For him, it’s a game. For me, it’s a show. We just call them different things. It’s a very similar thing. We both have teams,” she went on. “And we’re both competitive, like in fun ways, not in ways that eat away at us, but just like we just love it.”
“I love the person that I am with because he loves what I do and he loves how much I am fulfilled by making art and making music. That’s the coolest thing about Travis, like he is so passionate about what he does, that me being passionate about what I do, it connects us.”
My little theory is that she actually did TLOAS for Travis, because she wanted an album somewhat dedicated to him as her muse. I still feel like The Tortured Poets Department was about Taylor saying goodbye to Matt Healy, and maybe a little bit about Joe Alwyn too. Anyway, no, Taylor is not going to stop making music now that she’s engaged, nor will she stop when they get married. If she’s still making albums through the chaos of the past three years, it’s going to take more than a ring on her finger to get her to stop making music.
Photos courtesy of BBC 2, Taylor’s Instagram and Travis’s IG.
Sounds like she’s in the oversharing stage of her life which reminds me that it must have killed her when she was with Joe because he valued privacy so much. Good for her I guess but I wonder how smart it is to memorialize all of this cringiness in print.
Caroline O’Donoghue had an amazing take on her podcast (Sentamental Garbage). She thinks that Taylor rushed out Showgirl so they had some love songs that weren’t about Joe Alwyn at thier wedding reception:”Its giving multigenerational dancefloor”.
I died.
The exception is “Father Figure”, which is about dramatic conflict so, naturally, it’s the best song on the album.
Yes, be a good little wife and quit your job so you can be at home and take care of your man. 🤮
More people can relate to heartbreak than finding love with a wealthy, famous professional football player who clearly adores you.
Her primary audience, young American girls and women, are facing a world where their government is telling them that getting married and having babies is all they are good for. Girls and women are watching all their futures being scrubbed in real time to make way for a Christian White Male Nationalist Utopia where a female’s only role will be becoming living incubators for the Regime.
Young women are losing their human and civil rights while looking down the barrel of poverty and forced birth, while Taylor prances around flashing her diamond ring and privilege. It’s really tone deaf.
So therefore she should succumb to the right wing machine first? Are her fans unaware she’s incredibly successful and wealthy? Why does this argument only ever apply to women who are successful?
Not weighing in on whether I agree with OP’s argument about Swift specifically but I disagree that it only applies to successful woman. People were disgusted with Jeff Bezos’s absurdly extravagant wedding, for instance. There’s been a real sea change in American culture where most of us are just grossed out by excessive displays of wealth. It’s become a painful and disgusting reminder of the economic inequality in our country and the greed of the billionaire class. Of course, all of that is amplified when we see how the working class is suffering under the Trump administration as his billionaire pals get richer—and we haven’t even seen the worst of it yet.
I’m not even a Swift hater (or lover for that matter) but it’s tiresome to see her gender being brought up every time someone offers a criticism of her.
She’s a public figure doing publicity for a project and is happily and recently engaged – I don’t see a big offense here. Frankly, I am far more concerned that Kirk put a price on her head when he demanded that she submit to a husband.
But isn’t she saying she’s going o keep making music and working even if she get’s married. Technically, that’s the opposite of becoming no more than an incubator.
“Tone-deafness” is, as far as I can tell, not the reason given by any significant number of her fans who dislike the album, though. No one was expecting insightful sociopolitical commentary from Taylor Swift. We’re happy to see her blissed out and in love, and we were excited for new music BECAUSE we wanted a distraction from the bleakness — something that should be familiar to anyone who enjoys Meghan’s show for its luxe coziness. The issue for the disappointed TS fans is that, to many of us, TLOAS just feels like a rush job and lyrically subpar.
I’m not sure how offensive she can claim that speculation is given she herself so recently and bizarrely downplayed her own career when compared to travis’s.
@thecrankyfairy – honest question here, how did she downplay her career in favor of his? He’s in the thick of NFL season and she wrapped up a massive tour, so the timing seems natural in terms of him revving up and her winding down. Also she’s rolling out this new album with way more media appearances than I can recall her doing in quite some time so I don’t see her as downplaying her career. Again, no snark from me – genuinely curious to hear your viewpoint on this.
Yeah, there’s no sign of her winding down for him. That confused me too.
She’s doing her thing, releasing music, promoting it.
And she just finished a massively successful worldwide tour where she performed hours every night, so her not launching another tour right this second.
Also, on the “tone deaf” side of things, her comments about being happy Travis gets her joy in her work and how they support each other – isn’t it great for young women to see someone who has that mutual support from her partner, who has an example of a woman who doesn’t have to diminish herself because of some dude’s ego issues?
That’s not a rich and famous people only thing, even though they are both super successful. It’s a “oh yeah, I automatically don’t have to make myself smaller for a relationship – there are other options … I can look for someone who supports my passion, my goals as much as I do his” thing. Which is a message I wish was out there more at this particular moment in time.
I found her description of his job in comparison to hers when discussing why she would not do the super bowl halftime show to be extremely off putting both in how she described their work as well as her tone of voice when doing so. YMMV, but for lack of better words it gave me the massive ick.
I recently discovered that Taylor has a big “tradwives” fanbase. That is their wish for her, to marry and have children and be a kept woman, which is hilarious because Taylor is the billionaire in the relationship. If anything, it would be Travis who would be kept 😭😭 . She had a lot of money for a long time. If she didn’t want to work, she wouldn’t. It is obvious she is some type of a workaholic and that won’t change when she gets married / has children.
She is right- it is shockingly offensive.
there aren’t a lot of super successful women in the public eye who have supportive partners.
Men are fragile and feel “less than” and apparently that is our problem and not theirs, according to society.
I appreciate that, for her faults, she and Travis are modeling this- super supportive, loving relationship. I like happy Taylor.
I fall into the camp of – it is a great album, i am really enjoying it.
I know a lot of swifties love that folksy singer/songwriter thing she did in folklore/evermore and to a degree Tortured Poets too- i llike those too.
But i love pop Taylor.
The USA is a hellscape, we are literally living through the holocaust- our govt has sanctioned white supermacist groups in mask who are engaging in govt funded abducting people off the street, the end of due process- and some of those people are never heard from again.
So in ten years, don’t say you didn’t know about the mass murders.
If Taylor brings me, or anyone else a little joy- let us have it.
For the love of god.
As David Lee Roth (and i am sure others before him) once said- you keep on raining, i’ll still be the parade.
I love pop Taylor too. This is a solid pop/dance album. It’s catchy, fun, and a great escape. Also, we all know, she’s going to make at least 13 albums.
Not a Swift fan musically at all, but I do think her lyrics are empowering for women and girls so I wish her well. Good for her. I hope she’s happy with Travis–she deserves it.
The discussion that has confused me the most is the interpolation and sampling. So many people were strait up rude af about Beyonce sampling and giving credit to so many writers and creators. Iirc she did have an issue with crediting on Lemonade and she has not made that mistake since. But isn’t Wood just an interpolation of Jackson 5 with different lyrics? I am not an expert on this but it has bothered me how those who critiqued that practice are silent now.
I am going to say that simply comes down to racism that Beyonce has to deal with that Taylor obviously does not.
As much as people snipe at Taylor about all kinds of things, it will never be comparable to what Beyonce (and every black woman) is subjected to in our society.
It is disgusting.
And if people criticized Beyonce for essentially a similar thing that Taylor did (as far as i know, both artists gave credit to who they took from) then they are just being racist.
There is no euphemism for it. It is just the vile racism that every black person in our country has to deal with. And it sucks.
I think a baby will be her 13th release, not that her next album will be her last!