The new and updated (definitive) ranking of every Taylor Swift album, period.
Cady Brown gives us a true fan’s rundown of all of Taylor Swift’s albums.
*Disclaimer: for the purpose of this article, I will be excluding specialty singles and specialty albums. Deluxe albums and their retrospective songs are automatically included in this discussion. This is purely based on my opinion with little evidence other than what my ears like - thank you*
For Taylor Swift, quarantine was the perfect opportunity to write and record what seemed like an anthology of new music. Now that she’s won Album of the Year for the certified melodic triumph ‘folklore’ (making her the only woman to ever win Album of the Year thrice) it is time to once again buckle up for the 100% LEGIT, NEW, and UPDATED ranking of every Taylor Swift album.
9. Taylor Swift
Released: October 24, 2006
Taylors’ Debut album left no crumbs for Country music. Merely 17 years old Taylor effectively channeled her teenage conundrums into absolute smash hits that began her meteoritic rise. Her immediate hit ‘Tim McGraw’ turned heads - and with the consecutive success of romantic classic country ballads such as ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’ and ‘Our Song,’ it was without a doubt that T-Swift was here to stay!
Notable Track: Our Song
Underrated Bop: Mary’s Song (Oh My My My)
8. evermore
Released: December 11, 2020
‘evermore’, ongoing from ‘folklore’, is the latest release by Swift. This ranking is lower than some would expect, but I’ve placed it at #8, mostly due to the same melodic tune and monotoned vocalisation echoing through most - if not all - of her songs.
Individually, the tracks on their own are beautiful. I feel like this is a perfect low-fi-beats-to-study-to-type album, but it lacks the excitement that we saw in its predecessor, ‘folklore’. Although the album was what the Recording Academy describes as a ‘sonic cohesiveness’, I was waiting for something a little more exciting…
Notable Track: no body no crime (feat. HAIM)
Underrated Bop: long story short
7. Lover
Released: August 23, 2019
‘Lover’, the title track, is honestly one of the most lyrically impressive, modern-day picture-perfect love ballads in 3/4 times I’ve ever heard. I’d go so far as to classify it as my second all-time favourite Taylor Swift song. However, the rationale for this placement is in its overriding bubblegum, pre-teen pop synth hinders Swift a lyrical genius.
Tracks such as ‘London Boy’, ‘I Forgot That You Existed’ and *shudders*...’ME!’ place the album at a cringe level that we know Swift is better than. ‘Lover’ is overall Taylor Swift wilding, with random album bops.
Notable Track: Lover (duh)
Underrated Bop: Death By A Thousand Cuts
6. Reputation
Released: November 10, 2017
I am not going to lie, there is a video on my laptop of me reacting to the lead single of her highly anticipated album- ‘Look What You Made Me Do’- and there were a lot of disappointed tears.
However, I trusted that Queen T knew the industry enough pump out a fantastic dark synth pop-revenge album. The album’s thematic exploration of revenge was detailed in tracks such as ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ and ‘Don’t Blame Me’, with even the slip of a *gasp* swear word!
We knew the old Taylor was definitely dead - and was the start of a new age of Swift, but a few randomly assorted tracks such as ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ and ‘Call It What You Want’ bumped this down my list due to the lack of [[[sonic cohesion]]].
Notable Track: Getaway Car Underrated
Bop: Don’t Blame Me
5. 1989
Released: October 27, 2014
An icon. A legend and she IS the moment. ‘1989’ was without a doubt a cultural phenomenon and deserves a top-five placement.
‘Shake It Off’ as the leading single - and one of the most profiting songs to date - provided an escape from naming exes in songs to creating in-depth poetry about the feeling of love itself. It felt like a chapter in a book - with deeply entwined intertextuality and our favourite, birth year encompassing pop synth.
This album won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2016 and rightfully so. On this day, I bet my friend a Cotaletta Sandwich that it was a shoo-in for the award, and so both Taylor and I had a fantastic day.
Notable Track: Shake It Off
Underrated Bop: I Wish You Would
4. folklore
Released: July 24, 2020
My quarantine produced a terrible WAM, Taylors’ produced ‘folklore’.
As per its namesake ‘folklore’ is Taylor's mellow chapter in life. An album derived straight from a Hans Christian Andersen picture book. Draped in chiffon, Swift explores her early adulthood through the eyes of three different characters, James, Inez, and Betty (bonus points if you know who these people are!). An astray from her previous high tempo, high-intensity pop to a mellow, alternative sound - Swift maturely advocates for a light guitar, piano, and soft strings - a welcome change for the OG stans. This album is effortlessly beautiful, filled with allegory and picturesque imaginations, flowing from track to track.
‘folklore’ won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2020 and I swear it was the sonic cohesion, I am waiting for my recording academy board invite...
Notable Track: exile (feat. Bon Iver)
Underrated Bop: august
3. Fearless
Released: November 11, 2008
It was extremely difficult to order the next two albums as they are both quintessentially, Taylor Swift. Often imitated but never duplicated, ‘Fearless’ put country-pop on mainstream music charts, and thirteen years later still slaps.
Debuting at number 1, and now the most awarded album EVER in Country Music, ‘Fearless’ provided us with immortal hits such as ‘Love Story’ and ‘You Belong With Me’ - with Swift exploring the perils of teenaged enigmas in a series of driving guitar yet with melodic lexicon...
‘Fearless’ was Swift’s first Grammy sweep after being awarded 2010 Album of The Year and so many other awards that she infamously dropped a few during the ceremonial photoshoot - imagine being that successful.
Notable Track: Love Story
Underrated Bop: Untouchable
2. Speak Now
Released: October 25, 2010
Can you imagine dropping something like ‘Fearless’, becoming one of the most commercially successful and awarded albums of all time, and then having to follow it up? The expectations were high on now 21-year-old Swift, but she came through with one of the defining moments of Swift’s career.
‘Speak Now’ is ‘folklores’ 21-year-old little sister, it provides homage to the Swift sound with instant hits such as ‘Mine’ and ‘If This Was a Movie’, whilst containing the biggest screw you ballads of the century - ‘Dear John’ (literally get rekt John Mayer). Swift starts venturing out of the sound we found her in with soft rock in ‘Haunted’ and ‘The Story of Us’, hard rock in ‘Better Than Revenge’, and with an ode to her country roots in a fun quip ‘Mean’ and all-round banger ‘Sparks Fly’.
Although in music theory this sounds like a mess, this album feels like a chapter not only in Swift's life, but in music history that spiritually endowed and created ‘Swiftness’- Swift as a storyteller, and as a musician. This album is thrice as good as Fearless, despite not receiving as many awards, but deserves this number two spot for being inextricably iconic.
Notable Track: Sparks Fly
Underrated Bop: Long Live
1. Red
Released: October 22, 2012
‘Red’ was the moment of the 2010s, an album you can play from start to finish as any party playlist as it’s the album that just keeps giving. It shaped fashion, dubstep, calling out exes, turning 22, and catapulted then new and upcoming artist Ed Sheeran. Until that moment, 37-second drum solos and the colour ‘Red’ were irrelevant.
‘Red’ has everything, from EDM drops ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’, country bop ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’, rock in ‘The Last Time’ and emotional ballads in easily the greatest (and saddest) TS song of all time, ‘All Too Well’. It was a menagerie of chaos that somehow just worked, and my god it’s perfect. This dip into this pop sound proving that Swift deserved none other than commercial success and critical acclaim. The lyricism throughout is consistently genius - “so casually cruel in the name of being honest” ouch! and “forever going with the flow but you're friction” AWW?
Every Swiftie re-lives the traumatic moment when one of the greatest, and most commercially successful albums of all time was snubbed at the 2014 Grammys for Album of the Year- (YouTube it, it’s awful). However, the silver lining was it was the next evening when Taylor decided to produce 1989... and that ultimately showed them!
Notable Track: All Too Well
Underrated Bop: State of Grace
Cady Brown is the current Honorary Treasurer of the USU