Copyright smh
That was more than six months ago now, and I’ve been thinking about it again recently, as the volume of opinions about Taylor Swift’s new album reached levels I hadn’t seen before. In early October, Swift released The Life of a Showgirl, an album she recorded on her very brief windows of free time during the European leg of Eras, a live tour in which she performed for more than three hours a night, for 21 months. It was a feat of endurance that brought in more than $US2 billion. She was inescapable during that time. She released new versions of old albums and a brand new one too. Less than a year after hanging up the spangly bodysuit, she had a whole new album to share. I’m assuming a lot about her when I say this, but it feels to me like there wasn’t a whole lot of life that Swift could have lived in that time. And the album reflects it. In her book Mood Machine, about the history and shady dealings behind the streaming giant Spotify, journalist Liz Pelly writes that these platforms reward artists who provide “a constant drip of shorter, quick-hit releases to engagement-bait and trigger playlist algo-recs” instead of thoughtful, slower work. These are “harsh and anti-art” conditions, she writes, that essentially turn the artists who could be defining and reflecting our culture into employees for the platforms. It feels to me like there wasn’t a whole lot of life that Swift could have lived in that time. The same day Swift’s record was released, I sat down to interview a musician who is experiencing her first taste of fame. As we discussed her debut album, one I’ve connected to deeply this year, we talked about the need for artists to go away for a while so they have something to write about again. The trap many fall into is so familiar it’s often bundled into “second album syndrome” or “the sophomore slump”, wherein musicians who find success on their first go-around spend the next year/s of their life – if they’re lucky – touring and promoting and talking about that work.
