pop

Can We Talk About the Taylor Swift Backlash?

On Friday, 25 September 2026, Taylor Swift delivered unto the world The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore in the form of four additional tracks that weren’t part of last year’s album (which spent an impressive twelve weeks at the number one spot on the Billboard 200 and absolutely destroyed the records for biggest opening sales week[1]). The songs are “Patient Zero,” “Pink Clouding,” and “Babylon,” with “Cleveland!” rounding out the set. As happened when The Life of a Showgirl itself came out…suddenly everyone lost their minds! Taylor Swift is certainly a cultural figure who generates BIG REACTIONS but the reactions to The Life of a Showgirl and these new encore tracks particularly fascinates me. I’ve been pondering it for a year now and I thought it would be fun to chat about it. Please feel free to let me know what you think below, too!

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Reflections on Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl and Target’s Midnight Release

Remember when Taylor Swift made the cassette cool again? Yeah, that was the moment I realized there’s nothing she can’t do. There’s no trend, no idea she can’t resurrect if she decides she wants it back. Heck, she had people flocking to physical media again for her albums on vinyl and CDs and cassettes (!!) long before ever-rising prices and sudden disappearance of shows and movies had people rethinking Blu-rays and DVDs over streaming. As I stood in line at Target last night to get my copy of The Life of a Showgirl, I was reflecting on how happy I am that she’s made the midnight release cool again. It’s just one more “thank you” I owe Taylor Swift (if we’re listing things I should thank her for, lets add this album, too).

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Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Billy Joel

In the Scrubs episode “My Dirty Secret” (S2E13), Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) is lamenting relationship problems and J.D. (Zach Braff) chimes in: “Well that’s easy! Just tell her about it. Tell her everything you feel.” Mockingly Dr. Cox asks, “Should I give her every reason to accept that I’m for real?” J.D. replies, “First of all, no one understands relationships like Billy Joel, ok? ‘Uptown Girl’ got me through high school, long story for another day.” As a lifelong Billy Joel fan who also counts Scrubs as an all-time favorite show, I loooove this scene. And I agree with J.D.! Falling in love with Billy Joel’s music as early as I did, I explored romantic love in his songs long before I met partners and had these experiences myself. I lived my way into what he was singing about, often framing particular relationships, people, or moments with Billy Joel songs as I was living them. With the new two-part documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes premiering on HBO Max, I thought it would be fun to write about this! Here I’ll walk through Billy’s catalogue, hits and deep cuts, to examine how he prepared me for the thrills, triumphs, and trials of romantic love!

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