Taylor Swift – Fancy Boys Club

All That Glitters May Not Have Gold: A review of Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl

October 8, 2025October 8, 2025by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

Taylor Swift has made it known that she does not like being called “calculated”, and I get it. To refer to a woman by that word implies a certain tone that one would not give to a man, who normally would be called something like “ambitious”. It’s a shame to me that she doesn’t like this term, because I consider the word a grand compliment and I believe it applies to the pop star. As we enter the tenth month of 2025, Swift has her twelfth album, The Life Of A Showgirl, out. And there is a lot that is needed to calculate.

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Music/Movies, The Swiftening

The Swiftening, Part 12: The Life Of A Showgirl – The Life of Jesse from Saved By The Bell in Showgirls

October 4, 2025by The Fancy BoysLeave a Comment

Before December of 2020, Jordan Holmes (comedian, author, podcaster) had never, intentionally, listened to a Taylor Swift song. Then began The Swiftening, where Jordan decided to review every Swift album in order. Want to see the rest of his reviews? Just click on “The Swiftening” tab above the title of this and it will take you to Jordan’s reviews of Ms. Swift’s last eleven works.

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Music/Movies, Uncategorized

The Fifty Best Songs Of 2024

December 31, 2024by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

Well, if we can say anything about the state of music in 2024, we can certainly say that it was decidedly less horny than last year.

Look, there were definitely still some efforts to keep the mojo running in music. Sabrina Carpenter, Tinashe and Addison Rae all did their best to get us going like so many did in 2023. But there was not enough to overcome some of the bigger feelings we got this year: Rage. Contempt. Loneliness. Hopelessness.

Because of this, joyous songs (and there were a good number of them) felt like overwelcome lifeboats getting us to the next day. And even with this year’s crop of the best songs taking us to darker, more introspective places, there was still so much amazing music to share. Let’s take a look at the 50 best songs from a very good year of music.

Yes, there’s a playlist at the bottom of the article. Let’s boogie!

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Music/Movies, The Swiftening

The Swiftening, Part 11: The Tortured Poets Department- The Uncomfortable Writers Depot

April 23, 2024by The Fancy Boys2 Comments

Before December of 2020, Jordan Holmes (comedian, author, podcaster) had never, intentionally, listened to a Taylor Swift song. Then began The Swiftening, where Jordan decided to review every Swift album in order. So far, he has covered Swift’s 2006 debut, 2008’s Fearless, 2010’s Speak Now, and 2012 ‘s Red, 2014’s 1989, 2017’s reputation, 2019’s Lover, and 2020’s folklore and evermore, which we encourage you to check out if you haven’t already.

Back again, as we all knew I would be, the allure of hating cannot be denied. I rarely finish what I begin, and I doubt I will follow her career, alleging talentless desperation after every release, but today, today is… today and I hate.

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Music/Movies, Pop Culture

A Woman In-Between Eras: Examining The Tortured Poets Department

April 22, 2024by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

To open The Tortured Poets Department, her twelfth album (and fourth in five years), Taylor Swift gives us “Fortnight”. Swift and longtime producer Jack Antonoff give us a song that sonically feels in place with the catalog of Lana Del Rey (unsurprising, considering Antonoff also produces some of her music) as the thirty-four year old singer gives us the story of a woman dealing with a relationship gone way too wrong and delving into alcohol and thoughts of violence to her man’s new wife. “I loved you, it’s ruining my life,” Swift sings in a track that feels like something her and Antonoff could do in their sleep. It’s a good track, and Swiftboats (my term for Swift fans, many of whom have long since forgotten about John Kerry) will love it because it’s the kind of song they’ve heard and loved and sung along to before. It’s a very solid Taylor Swift song.

And that’s why it’s a little underwhelming.

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Advice, Comedy

Whose Lyric Is It? Taylor Swift or Gwar: Super Bowl Edition

February 5, 2024February 5, 2024by Brandon AndreasenLeave a Comment

The Grammys have just wrapped up. A night of Tracy Chapman and Billy Joel(both of which I very much care about) and..well pretty much everything else I don’t. While Miley Cyrus went to her hair stylist and said “Give me the Wynona Judd, 1989 edition” while operating sans undergarments (like Wynona Judd in 1989), a beauty came across the stage to regale herself in the “Album of the Year” victory most foresaw.

Taylor Swift isn’t so much an artist as a small nation. She is a blonde haired Che Guevara in the way she incites her followers. While she has become the angst of the Republican Party (and I love her so, so much for it) one nagging thing has always burdened her career: Has She Been Stealing Her Song Lyrics From GWAR?

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NFL, Sports

Can Your Team Win the Super Bowl: A Guide for Non-Fans

January 9, 2024January 8, 2024by Brandon AndreasenLeave a Comment

Congratulations, well adjusted adult. You have just spent the past four months spending your Sundays doing repairs around the house, going to brunch with friends, foraging for various vegetables you could purchase at the grocery store instead, or whatever hobby you developed that doesn’t involve you screaming at a TV. As a non-football fan, you have been able to funnel your anger and love and frustration into things that could be construed as a hobby, like splunking.

The calendar has flipped to the second weekend of January now, and that means the NFL playoffs. Mere weeks away from the Super Bowl. Legally, you are obligated to care then. So why not jump on the football bandwagon now. It’s kind of like The Golden Bachelor, only a somehow less depressing look at mortality.

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Music/Movies

Hours past “Midnights”: a (very late) review of Taylor Swift’s newest album

August 1, 2023July 31, 2023by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

The day that Fancy Boys Club went live, Taylor Swift released Lover. Since then, I have reviewed every album she has released since then. Unlike Jordan Holmes. whose series known as “The Swiftening” was an aggressive evisceration of her entire catalog, I have been able to find positive highlights in all of the music from pop’s reigning queen. However, today, when thinking about the song “Cruel Summer”, finally released as a single, I slowly realized something: I had forgotten to review Midnights, Swift’s tenth studio album which came out nine months ago.

Whoopsidoodles.

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Music/Movies, The Swiftening

The Swiftening, Part 10: Midnights… 10 Multiple Songs With The Word “Midnight” But Not All

October 26, 2022October 26, 2022by The Fancy Boys4 Comments

Before December of 2020, Jordan Holmes (comedian, author, podcaster) had never, intentionally, listened to a Taylor Swift song. Then began The Swiftening, where Jordan decided to review every Swift album in order. So far, he has covered Swift’s 2006 debut, 2008’s Fearless, 2010’s Speak Now, and 2012 ‘s Red, 2014’s 1989, 2017’s reputation, 2019’s Lover, and 2020’s folklore and evermore, which we encourage you to check out if you haven’t already.

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Music/Movies, Pop Culture, Uncategorized

What my hopes are for the new Taylor Swift album…

August 29, 2022by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

If you watched the VMA awards (I did not), you saw one of the two major stories which came out of the evening. One was the first appearance of Johnny Depp post-defamation trial, so… y’know… gross. The other was the announcement that there would be a new Taylor Swift album, and that is always a big deal.

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