Listen, I know this is a little bit off-topic for Nerdist dot com. We don’t really cover Taylor Swift. But we do cover fans and fandom. And let me tell you, if a TV series we write about was releasing its 35th version of practically the same episodes, I really feel like we’d have something to say about it. So, as a person who loves fans, I really have to wonder: is Taylor Swift releasing a 35th version of The Life of a Showgirl kind of an insult to the people who love her the most?
I wouldn’t say I’m a Swiftie. But I went to the Eras Tour, and I enjoy Taylor Swift’s music. This is not a directed attack on Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift just happens to be the person who has released 27 physical editions (18 CDs, eight vinyl LPs, and one cassette) and seven digital download versions of the same album. And has now added one more to that total with the addition of four new songs, “Patient Zero,” “Cleveland!,” “Pink Clouding,” and “Babylon.”
But more to the point, I’m a Fannibal; I’m part of the Beautifully Unwell; I’m a huge The Lord of the Rings fan, and I’ve been in one fandom or another my whole life. I LIVE to buy merch. At points in the heights of my fannish love, I might have bought anything from my fandom of choice. (As long as it was cute.) I go to cons and buy fan art I don’t need all of the time. I understand fans live for merch and creators live to sell fans merch—that’s a natural part of fandom. But THIRTY-FIVE VERSIONS of an almost identical album? Where does putting out merch for your fandom end and taking advantage of your fandom begin? And yes, for now you can just listen to this album on Spotify, but we bet there will be ten different physical releases just around the corner.
And now, obviously, Taylor Swift isn’t making any single person buy all thirty-five versions of The Life of a Showgirl or however many editions of The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore there end up being. (The whole thing is strangely reminiscent of Avengers Endgame: Encore—something, we also, by the way, were not thrilled by). But when you have the love and obsession of so many fans, many of whom are young, you have a modicum of responsibility to not squeeze them for every penny or utility they’re worth. I mean, don’t we get enough of that from every angle? Do we really need it from beloved artists too? Obviously, Taylor Swift isn’t totally alone in this, other artists have put out quite a number of variants as well, of late, but none that I’ve seen get even close to this number.
It also feels especially bad when the most likely purpose of this The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore re-release is to artificially inflate sales or listens. And that’s not good for fandom, and it’s not good for the industry overall. As we talk about with streaming price hikes, password-sharing crackdowns, and ads, once one person starts pulling these kinds of shenanigans, other people are sure to follow. And that’s a journey that ends badly for the fans first.
Anyway, don’t come for me, Swifties. This isn’t a personal attack on Taylor Swift. But 35 releases of one album is a wacky thing to do! But hey, if it makes you happy, you can pre-order it today.