Hard to be a Swiftie: When Taylor announced the new album, I knew I'd be forced to defend it

Emer McLysaght Author and journalist

In Nobody Needs This, a series for The Journal, Emer McLysaght focuses her eagle eye on the trends, products and notions we can do without. It’s not all giving out, however. She’ll also be keeping up with what’s catching her attention, keeping people interested and, quite frankly, driving her mad. 

I am begging Taylor Swift to take a day off. Hell, take five years off. Has she never heard of the old showbiz adage to “always leave them wanting more”?

It’s been less than two years since Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour (it’s the highest grossing world tour ever, bringing in over $2 billion) but in that time she’s released a new album, got engaged, got married, wrote and released a genuinely great song for the Toy Story 5 soundtrack (I Knew It, I Knew You) and became the youngest woman to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Then, this week, she announced a new single called Patient Zero and a new deluxe version of her most recent album The Life of a Showgirl complete with four newly written songs.

She is arguably the most famous and most visible woman in the world, with a legion of dedicated fans among which I count myself, and even I’m saying, “Okay Taylor Swift, that’s enough now”. 

Could do better

I’ve been a Taylor fan since 2014 when I sat beside a Swiftie at work and her infectious enthusiasm for the release of the 1989 album made me sit up and pay attention. I stuck with her through the tumultuous Kanye West feud years, felt like her 2020 album Folklore with The National’s Aaron Dessner was tailor (sorry) made for me, and found some of my lifelong favourite songs on Midnights when it was released in 2022 – I’ve even considered a tattoo in homage to You’re On Your Own Kid.

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I’ve been to hundreds of concerts in my life, every genre you can think of, and her Eras Tour shows are right up there at the top spot. They were more than just concerts, they were spectacles. I worked out that it cost me €47 an hour to be at The Eras Tour, the cheapest and best therapy I’d ever had.

Taylor Swift is undoubtedly an important figure in my life, but when she announced her new songs and deluxe album this week and my first instinct was “Oh no, now I have to defend this”, I knew my relationship to her had entered a rocky patch.

In truth, there’s been trouble on the horizon for a year since the release of The Life of a Showgirl, an album that, while musically interesting and undeniably catchy, is not her best work tonally or lyrically. A Charli XCX diss track and a cringe-inducing ode to her now-husband’s “wood” (that’s his penis, in case the song didn’t smack you hard enough over the head with the metaphor) left me wondering why she didn’t just wait. Just take a nice long beat to let the success of The Eras Tour sink in, have a lovely wedding and leave them wanting more.

For God’s sake, the woman recorded and released The Tortured Poet’s Department (an acclaimed double album) while she was on The Eras Tour and changed the format of the show mid-tour to accommodate the new music. Let that be the album legacy for a while, not the lyrics:

“Redwood tree, it ain’t hard to see

His love was thе key that opened my thighs”

His love was the key that opened my thighs. Come on Taylor, you’re better than that.

Stoking the feud 

Swift’s cringiness has often been the thing that endears her to me. Yes, she’s a genius songwriter with more resilience than most people could muster in a lifetime, but she’s also cheesy and awkward and wears her heart on her sleeve. While I was fuming with Taylor for stoking the Charli XCX feud, I also got that she wanted to try to have the last word in an unwinnable war against the “cool” girls.

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However, any misstep Swift makes just serves to feed into the millions of people who hate her, the people who have an emotionally negative response whenever her name is in the headlines, the people who are having a field day with this deluxe album news and the cash grab it infers.

The criticisms of Taylor Swift are endless, which I guess comes with the territory of being Taylor Swift. She’s got an estimated net worth of $2 billion (€1.75 billion), with most of her value coming from the publishing rights of her extensive back catalogue, she owns a private jet, she’s dipped her toe in political issues but never enough to produce the world peace critics seem to think she’s capable of, she donates millions but never enough millions, she provides a convenient representation of capitalism to baulk at, and is a woman on top of it all.

Misogyny is always mentioned when questions around the hatred of Taylor Swift are raised. Jay-Z is richer than she is, where’s all the Jay-Z hate? Bruce Springsteen isn’t far behind her, and everyone loves The Boss. Some of the worst commentary I’ve seen in recent months is around the presumed imminent announcement of a pregnancy, because when is commentary around women’s bodies and reproductive health ever not toxic?

I will never hate Taylor Swift, and I will never understand the people who seem to get up early in the morning (the Irish government must love them) to despise her, but I do think we need a break.

Unless, of course, she turns the tables on us again and today’s deluxe release of The Life of a Showgirl is actually the somewhat delusionally hoped for “secret good album” that Swift has been sitting on, watching and giggling as her fans try desperately to reconcile with “his love was the key that opened my thighs”. Unfortunately, I think it’s a classic case of Taylor failing to read the room, which is part of why I love her. Sometimes it’s hard to be a Swiftie.

Listen to this

• Taylor’s new release may not be hotly anticipated but Carly Rae Jepson’s eighth studio album Day and Night is out and should fill any pop-shaped hole in your heart. On Wires and Wild Child are highlights.

• In more good album news, Republic of Loose have announced they’ll be releasing a special vinyl edition of Aaagh (one of the best Irish albums of the noughties) to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

Reading

• In honour of our new emergency plan booklets, it’s well worth revisiting the story of Joe Jacob, Marion Finucane and the iodine tablets.

• Why does a man need 12 degrees? And how did he get them? It’s in the New York Times.

Coveting

• This giant Bic pen light.

• This Pellador Pigeon Fancier t-shirt.

Don’t sleep on

• SNL UK, infinitely funny, fresher and braver than its US counterpart. This weekend update on Palestine, Macklemore and Ed Sheeran is spot on and What Kind of Irish is your Grandad? is an instant classic.

• Comic Shane Daniel Byrne has announced a 2027 Irish tour. Get your tickets here.

Emer will be back next Friday morning with more recommendations.