Taylor Swift – 2026
★★☆☆☆
I’m tired, Taylor.
There’s so much to unpack here. This deluxe was already in trouble from the start, being an addition to what’s widely considered one of Taylor’s worst albums, if not her worst (though I personally wouldn’t go that far). To be blunt, this isn’t an encore anybody asked for, most people left the show early anyways.
This is some of Taylor’s weakest songwriting to date. On ‘Patient Zero,’ when Taylor “gets into it,” she gives romantic advice akin to your single friend trying to nuke your relationship. “He charmed your family and friends and you thought it’s cause he loves you but it’s cause he loves how everybody else loves him, uh huh!” It’s a line that keeps playing over and over in my head for the sheer absurdity of it, including the “uh huh” at the end of the line as if this was something worth affirming to herself. Just reading the line out loud feels so clunky and stiff that I’m baffled that it made it on the song in the first place.
Up next is the punching bag on this deluxe, ‘Cleaveland,’ where Taylor plays this push-and-pull with swearing on the song, at first covering the word “whore” with a gasp, and later cutting herself off when she’s about to say “bitch.” It feels like an attempt to prove that she isn’t just the “girl next door” she’s branded herself as for the last twenty years, but she’s actually cool, and can even almost swear sometimes. In fact, she talks shit too! Didn’t expect that, did you? She spends the second half of the song reassuring you that she is, in fact, thrilled to be married, and that all her haters can do is seethe at the fact that she’s wearing white.
The Life of a Showgirl reeks of insecurity from bottom to top, but it’s even more obvious on the encore. Taylor is so desperately trying to prove that she’s happy, that she’s found love, she’s married, she has Travis! What more could a girl want? I hardly find the other two tracks on this deluxe worth talking about because for the most part, they’re boring and don’t have anything there to really dissect, so what’s the point?
Taylor is better than this. She’s penned incredible albums in the past, namely folklore, evermore and Red, along with songs like All Too Well, which is a better song than most pop stars ever make. That Taylor is at the very least dormant now, if not entirely in the past, and her numbers can only carry her for so long. For now, we’re stuck with Taylor at her worst writing-wise singing about Travis Kelce over instrumentals better suited for children’s music. I’m lost.
Favorite Track(s): Babylon
Written by Michéal Doran
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