Taylor Swift, The World’s Oldest Teenager…

Before I get into this one, let me get this straight. Old Taylor Swift I love, I still listen to Lover I still get ready for nights out listening to Reputation. If she still made music like this, I probably wouldn’t have felt compelled to write this (well within reason).

On Friday, Taylor Swift dropped her latest album The Life of a Show Girl (The Encore) and let’s just say it wasn’t it. Now while everyone else was ogling over how bad this album was, I personally was listening to the 10th Anniversary version of Illuminate by Shawn Mendes (an album I HIGHLY recommend). The issue with Taylor Swift isn’t as simple as “oh her music is bad,” it comes in three fold. Her music, her politics and her personality.

I am going to begin with the latter because I feel it’s a better lead. As the title of this article emphasises she is the world’s oldest teenager. Her entire personality is that she is “the English Teacher” and when she got engaged to Travis Kelce her caption was “the English teacher and gym teacher are getting married.” A lot of her music is still centred around typical American High School ideas, with songs often referencing prom, second period and a song even titled “So High School.” Now if she made one reference to it one time and it was a catchy and fun comparison, literally 99% of people wouldn’t have a problem with it. In fact I think her older music when she was younger referencing it isn’t even an issue, it’s the fact she’s 37 years old concerns me. Her obsession with high school, to me, makes her seems like a pick me. Let me catch any of the older generations reading this up. “A "pick-me" is a slang term for someone who changes their behaviour or puts down others to gain validation, attention, or approval, most often from men.” Her relationship with Travis Kelce can only be depicted in my eyes as the shy timid girl finally being picked by the popular jock. In her newest record “Cleveland” she makes a concerning comment that “you only need one person in this world/who doesn’t find you completely insufferable.” YIKES. If my future husband only didn’t find me completely insufferable and didn’t think I was the best thing since sliced bread. Yeah to quote Adele “divorce babes, divorce.” There has also been a lot of discourse around her male centred life. I personally do not agree with this entirely. I mean yeah, she has always gotten a lot of slack about how she centres men in her life, and every era does change dependant on who she’s with or if she’s with anyone. But I suppose everybody’s life and “era” is shaped by who they’re surrounded by whether that be romantic relationships or platonic. Now her wedding was where I had to draw the line with her. To get married in Maddison Square Garden is one thing, to do it on 4th July weekend and block the city off is another. I remember watching her documentary on Netflix and she made a throwaway comment that she couldn’t leave her house anymore because of the fame. Which to me, would insinuate you want the peace and quiet to you know get married??? Also as far as I am aware she had a cardboard castle she got married in (I don’t even have the energy to get into this one). The issue with getting married on 4th July weekend is the idea that you’re blocking off a side of the city where people cannot get to work or cannot go see their friends and family during one of the busiest weekend of the year. It’s all very self centred to me.

Moving onto her politics. Taylor Swift’s politics are deeply concerning partly because they arrive dressed as something braver than they are. Her feminism can feel less like a commitment to women’s freedom and more like a customer service policy for her own reputation: criticise the music, question the marketing, or simply fail to applaud loudly enough, and suddenly you’re standing in the way of women’s progress. Apparently, the glass ceiling now has a one-star review button. There is a real difference between sexism directed at a female artist and ordinary criticism of an extraordinarily powerful celebrity, but her public image does not always seem eager to make that distinction. That narrowness feels especially glaring alongside her silence on Palestine. I respect that speaking publicly may have raised genuine safety concerns for her, her team, and her fans; a person with an audience that large has to think about consequences most of us never face. Still, caution does not make the silence insignificant. When someone can command the attention of millions with a single sentence, choosing not to speak is also a choice people will notice. What troubles me is the gap between a politics that can turn a personal slight into a cultural emergency and one that struggles to acknowledge suffering on this scale. If empowerment means having a voice only when the issue is your own image, it starts to look less like a movement and more like a very successful merchandise line.

Now lastly her music. Since The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift’s music has started to feel less like a collection of songs and more like a compulsory reading list with a stadium tour attached. The best of her earlier writing could make a tiny detail carry an entire heartbreak; lately, she seems determined to explain the heartbreak, annotate it, and then release fifteen more tracks in case we missed the footnotes. The melodies blur, the metaphors crowd each other, and every passing thought is treated as though it deserves a bridge. Some listeners even joke that her ex, Joe Alwyn, must have been writing the good stuff for her. He did co-write several songs under the name William Bowery, but the idea that he was secretly responsible for her best work is speculation, not evidence. It is a funny theory because it captures a real frustration: the restraint and editing that made songs like “Exile” and “Champagne Problems” hit so hard now feel in short supply. Swift can still write a line that stops you in your tracks; I just wish she would occasionally stop there too. Someone argued that she has wanted to feel more like a poet and didn’t care about what her music actually sounded like. Which I mean, you do you girl, just don’t be shocked people stopped listening.

Now listen, I will still dance in my room listening to “Welcome To New York” and still cry listening to “All Too Well (10 minute version)” but I cannot continue to support her new work. The beauty of art is that it is subjective, if you love go you! Have fun, but I will be sitting this one out and continue listening to Shawn Mendes. Maybe some day Taylor will snap out of this rut and bring out bangers again, but for now it doesn’t seem likely.

Let me know what you think, and I’ll see you in the next one.

Eva :)