Same Song, Different Era: Taylor Swift and the Economy of Nostalgia
- Khadeejah Masud
- Nov 16, 2025
- 4 min read
Shortly after the conclusion of the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift’s album The Life of a Showgirl was announced in August of this year, premiering on October 3rd. It would be an understatement to say that reactions to the popstar’s album are mixed, with many Swifties leaning towards a negative opinion. The album release has posed questions about the future of Swift’s music, especially given that her marketing strongly suggested a reputation — pun intended — that many feel pointed toward a very different direction than the album ultimately delivered. On a larger scale, The Life of a Showgirl provokes a debate rooted in the emergence of reboot culture and “nostalgia baiting” – two villains against authenticity, serving instead as a magnifying glass on the industry’s dependence on marketing and repetition.
The Life of A Showgirl was announced via Travis and Jason Kelce’s podcast New Heights; in the days following, a series of promotional concept photos were released via Swift’s Instagram. They pictured the cultural icon in her trademark red lip, sporting bold and daring looks that fit a nostalgic, slightly eroticised and intriguing archetype – the showgirl.
Evolving from 18th-century notions of a young woman acting in a theatrical way to attract male attention, the showgirl archetype has undergone a metamorphosis through generations. By the mid-nineteenth century, the term had come to mean a singer and dancer in music hall acts (one might think of Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge). Today, showgirl can be associated with the aesthetic and lifestyle associated with stripping performers in Las Vegas.
But it all comes down to one core value: inhabiting the role of a spectacle before an audience, whether on a stage or not.
Swift has tried to wear this mask to portray a certain truth about her own experiences as a performer – a motif that has found itself bleeding into the concluding leg of the tour when Swift introduced a set featuring tracks from The Tortured Poets Department.
The monochrome glitz and glam were animated by choreography and an entire aesthetic constructed around the idea that “the show must go on.” In The Life of a Showgirl, this iconography has been both exhausted and yet not wholly honoured.
In promotional concept photos, Swift leans into the showgirl trope by evoking a sense of mystery, using dim lighting and serious poses – evoking an entirely different atmosphere to that of the pop album that fans received.
Though her face is the forefront of the album, Swift becomes a mere spectre behind the imagery. Behind the obvious theatrics of the feathers, the gemstones, and the dazzling jewel tones, fans expected to be invited into a mysterious allure of performance. Many fans have lamented the fact that their expectations of sensual jazz, musical theatre, and caricaturist sounds were not met, though the marketing convinced them that this was the route she was venturing down.
In spite of this, the music is undeniably authentic to Swift herself. It is a pop album with elements of 1989, traces of Reputation, and a faint lingering of Folklore, producing a collection of poetic tracks that reflect on her journey as an artist thus far. Most prominently, the album is an upbeat expression of her relationship with Travis Kelce, and a touching ode to her impending marriage.
This is where the idea of “nostalgia baiting” emerges. Although the album leans into the performance aesthetic of the showgirl, its sound remains very similar to Swift’s earlier work – a disconnect that has resulted in much of the album’s backlash. The nostalgia Swift engages with is two-fold: both referencing her previous work, and referencing a historical idea of a showgirl.
The phenomenon of this release emerges from a pattern within the music industry itself – artists are looking back on certain periods in order to contextualise their own work, indulging in visual culture for the excitement of their audience, without honouring the source material of the original idea. Swift does this, for instance, by referencing Shakespeare in “The Fate of Ophelia” – a song that misinterprets the actual story of Ophelia, recontextualising it with a disregard of Ophelia’s story as a figure subjugated by men. Drawing on this sense of nostalgia in homage to previous masterpieces is where we see how it can be manipulated to fit a certain vision. In Swift’s version, she is saved from Ophelia’s fate of drowning by a chivalric figure (presumably an ode to Kelce) who sweeps her off her feet. Many have felt this song shallowly interprets Ophelia’s story, instead leaning on John Everett Millais’s romanticised visual depiction. Perhaps the very idea of nostalgia has been commercialised – prioritising what looks visually marketable, yet underdelivering on the genuine ‘throwback’ it promises.
In our current culture, musical nostalgia offers a way to escape from the realities of day-to-day life – a way to retreat into a time that feels simpler. This subtle form of nostalgia is comforting – but when nostalgia becomes a calculated marketing tool, a different effect is created. Fans are drawn to the warmth of a curated vibe rather than the reality behind it.
This begs the final question: is music better when nostalgia is subconscious, or consciously deployed?
Edited by Gia Dei, Co-Music Editor
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