Here are 12 better things to do with your time than listen to Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl

This article originally appeared in the New School Free Press and was edited by Pritika Sharma and Megan Liu.

We’re a couple months removed from the release of Taylor Swift’s pop culture atomic bomb of an album, and I’ve been looking back on what could’ve been done differently. She reaches for so many great themes on this record only to fall flat with sloppy writing and bland production. While she’s proved to be possibly the world’s most famous woman, she can’t seem to manage a legitimate portrayal of herself as a showgirl. But there are many out there who can. I’m here to guide you through some of my favorite female songwriters that take Swift’s ideas and expand them into fully formed musical worlds. In lieu of checking out The Life of a Showgirl for the controversy, consider spending a couple extra minutes on this playlist of genuinely great music instead. 

“The Fate of Ophelia” “The Tradition,” Halsey (2021)

For any woman to intertwine her own fate with Shakespeare’s tragic character of Ophelia is to invoke a sense of female dread that has lasted throughout the centuries. A narrative about a woman pushed to madness and suicide by the men in her life isn’t something to cite casually. Taylor Swift, however, treats it like it is. “The Fate of Ophelia” is a complete bastardization of one of the most legendary characters of all time — are we sure Swift is the English teacher? 

With lines like “All that time I spent alone in my tower” (Ophelia is never once mentioned to be in a tower — that’s Rapunzel) it doesn’t even seem like she’s read the play. Most damningly, the fundamental implications of the love song she’s written — “You dug me out of my grave and/Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia” — are that men can save one from madness and suicide, which is not only a broadly problematic message but directly contradictory to the tale of Shakespeare’s heroine. In longing for the “Fate of Ophelia” that could’ve been, I found myself returning to Halsey’s magnificent and underrated 2021 record, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. 

Produced in conjunction with Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, it’s an epic meditation on womanhood, motherhood, the body, and power. The opening number, “The Tradition,” is everything “The Fate of Ophelia” should’ve been: a fable-like tale of a girl torn apart by demand for her body; an allusion to both womanhood and the horrors of celebrity culture. The chorus cycles through a haunting “Take what you want/Take what you can…Ask for forgiveness, never permission” over eerie piano, and strings that build with Halsey’s vocals. It’s the terrifying tale of a tragic heroine that Swift’s glitz and glamor misses the mark on entirely. 

“Elizabeth Taylor” “Oscar Winning Tears” by Raye (2023)

If you’re looking for an Oscar-worthy pop song, look no further than Raye: a rising star who’s scored performances at both the Grammys and the actual Oscars. The first full track of her 2023 breakout album My 21st Century Blues lambasts the men who’ve torn her apart with their tears so fake they should be actors. It’s lyrically well played, but her performance, fittingly, is where she really shines. Her personality radiates through the track, from colloquially spoken verses to her iconic belt on the chorus. 

“Oscar Winning Tears” is a much better ode to Hollywood’s history than Swift’s “Elizabeth Taylor,” which attempts a dedication to the star but lands instead somewhere between empty idolization and insult as Swift can’t seem to decide whether Elizabeth Taylor is a tragic damsel or a prima donna. It’s one of the most thematically marooned tracks on the album, with lines like “I would trade the Cartier for someone to trust (just kidding),” only deepening the sense that she has no idea what she’s trying to say. 

If you want to hear Swift make a good reference to the actress, I’d even point you towards her charmingly psychotic “...Ready for it?” from 2017, whose lyric “Burton to this Taylor” encapsulates in only one line more literary substance than the entirety of the 2025 song. While Raye and Swift both place themselves strongly in the legacy of women in music, Swift seems to be destroying her own, while Raye’s only grows stronger. 

“Opalite”  “Marry The Night” by Lady Gaga (2011)

I struggled deeply with what to recommend in place of “Opalite,” my least favorite song on the record. It’s an aspartame-glossed pop failure meant for dancing around and instead succeeding in making me want to bang my head against the wall in time with each “Oh-oh-oh-oh.” She uses a gemstone metaphor to show how much better she is than fiancé Travis Kelce’s last girlfriend — a black onyx void compared to Swift’s iridescent white opalite (an elementary school metaphor with deceptively fancy gemstone titles). I, however, am a fan of the dark. I found myself at last reaching for Lady Gaga’s 2011 hit (and one of my most loved songs of all time) “Marry The Night” as an antidote. Like “Opalite,” it’s made for dancing — but not the kind of socks-on-the-bedroom-carpet jumping around that Swift seems to be writing for, but rather the whole-body-unleashed liberated kind of movement that you’ll find in the darkest corners of the night. It’s an anthem for those rejected by the daylight, an open declaration that Gaga’s not going to “give up her life” for anyone: she’d rather dance in the dark instead. In place of one of Swift’s weakest bridges (reminiscent of the spectacular, post-release-edited failure that was the bridge of her 2019 single “Me!”) lies one of the best I’ve ever heard. It’s a simple, ascending chord verse of skeleton gloves, wedding bells, and stiletto-induced punctures in vinyl that somehow makes me feel like I’m on the highest plane of existence every time I hear it, no matter how dark everything else might be. The first two lines are my favorite: “Nothing’s too cool to take me from you/New York is not just a tan that you’ll never lose.”

“Father Figure” “Gone” by HAIM (2025)

Taylor Swift generated a lot of buzz when George Michael was revealed as a credited songwriter on “Father Figure,” implying a sample of his 1987 hit with the same title. But when the song came out, Michael’s touch was barely there. It was more of a vague interpolation than a sample, disappointing many fans who were excited for the crossover. But for those looking for how George Michael’s body of work could be revitalized in 2025, I present to you instead the opening track of one of my favorite albums this year: HAIM’s “Gone.”

It’s an assertive declaration of freedom in the face of misogyny, fame, and expectations. They tap Michaels’ legendary “Freedom! ‘90” for vocals in the chorus, letting the choir back up a new anthem of personal liberation. The bridge and outro contain the blunt manifesto of their album, I quit: “You can hate me for what I am/You can shame me for what I’ve done/You can’t make me disappear/You never saw me for what I was.” It’s a continuation of George Michaels’ celebratory spirit in just the way that Swift’s satire of father figures fails to be. 

“Eldest Daughter”  “Machines” by Jensen McRae (2022)

One of my favorite eldest daughters is Jensen McRae, an up-and-coming songwriter from Los Angeles who I’ve been following since her viral track “Immune” in 2020. She released “Machines” on her debut album Are You Happy Now? in 2022. It’s a heartbreaking account of losing faith as you grow out of girlhood. She tries at first to live within the nostalgia, recounting wings in her attic and attending her younger brother’s basketball games. But she soon realizes it’s not possible to continue operating as if she were a child. 

The song is dedicated to grieving the loss of innocence, with the refrain “Now I know that I bleed months/But oh, I was a machine once” at the center of the song. Her voice growls and breaks as the violins soundtrack her pain. At the bridge, she channels a distinctly female rite of passage — being scared of a man who’s never laid a hand on you but still lives in your fears. He shows up in a nightmare, the panic follows her into the day, and she closes with the stark admission: “Growing up bad dreams put in practice.” Most importantly, the words “bad bitch” and “savage” are nowhere to be found. 

“Ruin The Friendship” “Triple Dog Dare” by Lucy Dacus (2021)

“My advice is always ruin the friendship/Better that than regret it for all time.” While “Ruin The Friendship” is one of the less offensive songs on the record, it’s a flat tale of regretting a missed high school kiss that we’ve heard dozens of times before, including from Swift herself. Instead, I’d point you to “Triple Dog Dare,” the closing track on Lucy Dacus’ 2021 album Home Video, a heartbreaking eight-minute ballad about the visceral pain of the forced isolation queer people experience growing up. She tells the tale of a friend she loved dearly whose mom barred them from seeing each other after mysteriously reading Dacus’ palm. As she begs her young lover to run away with her, it builds from a quiet, acoustic track into an arena-anthem rock peak where she repeats her challenge with everything she has left in her. 

The most gut-wrenching line is one that comes as she stares at her hands after the reading: “How did they betray me? What did I do? I never touched you how I wanted to.” It’s a complex and poetic story of a friendship left unruined and the fantasy of what could’ve been, and it’s far more interesting than Swift’s heterosexual, stereotypical, weakly country tune could ever be. 

“Actually Romantic” “Sympathy is a knife” by Charli xcx (2024)

You may have heard the rumors that “Actually Romantic” was a direct dig at Charli XCXxcx. There’s certainly very real evidence to this, and in all likelihood it is exactly what it’s suspected to be: an attempt at a clever clapback to Charli’s 2024 track “Sympathy is a knife,” rumored to be about Taylor Swift. In “Actually Romantic,” Swift makes the claim that all of the attention people (Charli) are dedicating to her is so devoted it becomes romantic. But similar to the downfall of many other pop stars in the past, this claim makes the fatal mistake of assuming it’s all about her. 

Listening to Charli's song, you’ll quickly find it’s not about Swift at all: it’s a vulnerable confession of a woman who cannot escape comparing herself to other women in her industry because it’s what media outlets have forced on female celebrities as long as they’ve been around. It’s also musically addicting — electronica swirls around her words as if they’re running through her head while she’s onstage performing. As for a rivalry, it’s clear who won this war. 

“Wi$h Li$t” “Money is Everything” by Addison Rae (2025)

After the release of The Life of a Showgirl earlier this month, a viral tweet read, “What if I told you in 2020 that Addison Rae would be making better music than Taylor Swift 5 years from now?” Similar attitudes echoed across the internet as the world finally heard Swift’s much-anticipated album and many came to the realization that it was nothing like they had hoped. One of the album’s most damning missteps is the way Swift awkwardly superimposes her personal life onto the music — and while that’s usually her greatest strength, here it’s not the heartbreak or raw emotion that take center stage, but the babies she’s apparently eager to make with Travis Kelce. 

In “Wi$h Li$t,” she fantasizes about how other people may want money but all she wants is domestic bliss. It’s an uncomfortable dream outside of the vacuum of Swift’s own head: a billionaire contrasting the poor’s fantasies of luxury with her own dreams of mini-Kelces doesn’t come off great during an economic downturn. But the topic of money alone doesn’t doom a pop song to failure — just look at Addison Rae’s “Money is Everything” off of her 2025 debut Addison. It’s a no-holds-barred, semi-ironic cash brag, but Addison’s floaty vocals and pop culture references make it come off smooth instead of grating. For the non-rich among us, Addison’s reads like a manifestation rather than an infantilization. It’s also just a damn good summer jam. 

“Wood” “Dress” by Taylor Swift (2017)

Taylor Swift has written two explicitly dedicated sex songs in her career. “Wood” is the second of them. But where her dirty puns about Travis Kelce’s “redwood tree” provide only second-hand embarrassment, “Dress,” a track of her 2017 reputation, gives the listener a rare glimpse into the mature love she shared with her boyfriend at the time, Joe Alwyn. It’s adult and achingly intimate, synths glistening around her as she recounts their “Secret moments in a crowded room.” 

She romanticizes the celebrity of it while condemning it at the same time: “Everyone thinks that they know us/But they know nothing about/All of this silence and patience/Pining and anticipation.” The chorus is vivid and sensual, as she describes a dress she “only bought…for [him] to take it off” and the bedpost she wants to carve with her name. Her voice alternates between breathy and soft to confessional and low, giving us a glimpse into both ends of their intimacy. When reviewing “Wood,” I found myself returning to “Dress” and wondering… what happened?

“CANCELLED!” “Celebrity Skin” by Hole (1998)

“CANCELLED!” is probably the most controversial track on the record, even inciting proud claims of inspiration by conservative commentator Candace Owens who historically wouldn’t touch Swift with a ten-foot pole. What Swift means when she says that she likes her friends “cancelled” is hard to discern by the fact that several of her closest associates, from Blake Lively to Brittany Mahomes, carry a variety of controversies — ranging from lawsuits against powerful men to casually liking pro-Trump posts. But for all its talk about scandal, the song lacks any actual comment on the significance or error of cancel culture or the pressures of being a celebrity. 

It inspired me to dig up a ‘90s hit by another controversial female figure: Hole’s lead singer/songwriter Courtney Love. Kurt Cobain’s ex-wife got into feud after feud during her decades in the music industry, but in 1998 she released a song that would tear them all apart. “Celebrity Skin” is a brutal takedown of the way famous women are expected to act, with lines like “Oh Cinderella, they aren’t sluts like you.” She fires back at her critics with an ironic embrace of the fake, always-perfectly-made-up, submissive woman they expect her to be. While it didn’t erase all of Love’s controversy, it remains a powerful and slamming commentary on the expectations of fame and the trigger-happy cancel culture decades before the term even existed. 

“Honey”  “Honey” by Robyn (2018)

The penultimate track on The Life of a Showgirl inspired this list when my attempt to enjoy Robyn’s “Honey” was derailed by having to excavate it from beneath Taylor Swift’s flavorless pop debris, a level of annoyance I happily thought to pass on to the New School Free Press audience. “Honey” is the title track and centerpiece of Robyn’s 2018 album of the same name, her only full-length follow up to 2010’s career-defining Body Talk. 

It’s a sexy and carefully built-up five minute electronic ballad, crafting a steamy sonic environment (by which I mean both erotically and like a good underground nightclub) rich with indulgent, almost gluttonous sensory lines. “At the heart of some kind of flower/Stuck in glitter, strands of saliva” is so vivid it’s almost dirty. The song, along with the rest of the album, is beautifully produced and almost feels like a massage to the ears when listened to with headphones. It’s one of my all time favorite songs, and far superior to its sibling in name. 

“The Life of a Showgirl” “Maybe This Time,” Liza Minnelli (1972)

The closing track “The Life of a Showgirl” was anticipated to be a showstopper, and instead turned out to be a cheap, awkwardly musical theater-y, self-insert fanfiction of whoever “Kitty” is supposed to be. Featuring a legitimate use of the word “legitly,” it’s a lame closer to a terrible album that provides absolutely no redemption or apology for the last 37 minutes. If you want showgirl, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. 

With this, I leave you with none other than two of the most legendary showgirls of all time, one fictional and one real: Cabaret’s Sally Bowles performed by Liza Minnelli. “Maybe This Time,” my all-time favorite musical theater track, is performed in this rendition as a sultry jazz number turned to a powerful ballad of showgirl anguish. 

While Swift’s main character is a past-tense, surface-level failed star whose career is unquestionably over and done and is simply passing on the tragedy to the next girl, Minnelli’s Bowles is teetering in her heels right on the line between success and failure as she tries desperately again and again to garner adoration. It’s a powerful, emotionally-driven performance that would inspire a standing ovation were it done live. Most importantly, it proves once and for all that Swift knows nothing of how to write the life of a showgirl.