At the beginning of October, famous singer and songwriter Taylor Swift released her twelfth album, titled “The Life of a Showgirl." As the newest melodies root their way into people’s minds, students at Wright State University share how the release of a major album impacts the school’s radio station, and what their personal takes are on the new tracks.
WWSU talks playing the album
Larkin Smith is the General Manager for WWSU, WSU’s Radio Station. He is a senior and has been involved with WWSU for several years. This year, he hosted a successful College Radio Day, where he was able to listen to the album for the first time.
“So one good thing is, if you're live on air and you have a Spotify account, since you're personally paying for Spotify, you can play through Spotify, and Spotify had the full clean album, so I played it that way,” Smith said.
To play a song on the radio, it has to be clean, but not all of the songs on this album are explicit. While Smith chose to play the entire album on College Radio Day utilizing Spotify, he shared how he will manage to play the album's tracks moving forward.
“It's kind of complicated what we have to do, since Taylor doesn't like, legally sell clean versions. So we have to just pick the songs out of the album that we can play, and we know it would be fine no matter what,” Smith said.
Smith said that he will play “The Fate of Ophelia”, “Elizabeth Taylor” and “Opalite” since these songs are clean naturally. The only other track on that album that comes clean from Swift herself is “Ruin the Friendship”, which is much less of an upbeat track.
As he said earlier, the Spotify account can be utilized, but Smith also shared that most of the time, they must have physical copies, such as CDs, of the albums and music they wish to play.
“Because we are more of a smaller station, and we don't have that much money, so we can't, like, invest in, new music, really, unless we buy it personally. And that what I did with this album,” Smith said.
Due to Smith’s willingness to fund this purchase, listeners might be greeted by Swift’s newest music when they tune into WWSU.
WSU opinions and media reviews
“The Life of a Showgirl” is a return to Swift’s time as a pop star, with lots of upbeat tracks and a small handful of inexplicit tracks. While these may be the only ones safe for radio play, the entire album is a fresh direction for Swift, meaning many will want to tune in off the air.
As said in Rolling Stone’s 'The Life of a Showgirl' review, with this album, Swift “forged a reunion with studio genius Max Martin and Shellback. But their return isn’t just a callback to the grandiose synth-bangers of ‘1989’ or warehouse-ready electric grit of ‘Reputation.’ Instead, the trio takes from all they’ve each learned in the eight years apart to chart a whole new path.”
Outside of running WSU’s radio station, Smith is also a big fan of Swift and her music. After sharing how the album’s release impacted him and his workplace, Smith shared his personal feelings on the album.
“I personally like this album. I'm more of a pop Taylor girly, you know, I love me ‘1989’, ‘Reputation’, ‘Lover’, ‘Midnights’. You know, those are like the main pop ones, and I feel like this brings it back to her, you know, roots of being a pop girly,” Smith said.
While this was the feeling of many Swifties, some needed a bit more time to adjust to the tone and feeling of this album.
Angel Wilson is a senior english education major at WSU and a longtime fan of Swift. She voiced her thoughts on the album upon first listen, and how she feels now.
“I honestly liked it on the first listen, but a few of the songs had to grow on me. It definitely was not the vibe I thought it would be,” Wilson said.
Wilson shared that her favorite songs include “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Father Figure,” both of which are having social media moments right now, especially the former.
A household name and billionaire, Swift does not need any promotion, but her album is available on all music platforms if you are curious, or due for a relisten.
