But her mounting success undoubtedly stands on the shoulders of Speak Now's case studies of condensing complex inner dilemmas seeing your parents' failed marriage as a prophecy, wishing you'd never grown up into an album still adorned with hope. The album plays as a survey course in contemporary pop, and Swift is game to try just about anything, from the uninhibited dance-pop of standout Starlight to the thundering heartland rock of Holy Ground. The tracks that work best are those on which the production is creative and modern in ways that are in service to Swifts songwriting. To celebrate the release of Swifts tenth album Midnights, here we take a look back on Taylor Swifts entire career and rank her ten albums in order of greatness. "Picture To Burn" is a scorned teen's "Before He Cheats" swapping shooting whiskey for rumor mills with a grown woman's wit and a veteran songwriter's aptitude. "Champagne Problems" serves as a painful tale of a failed relationship. But once the title track's idyllic and endearing comedown is over, and the atmospheric funeral march for past woes of "The Archer" makes way for new beginnings, Lover has very few high points after its fifth track. But its All Too Well thats the finest moment on Red, and possibly the greatest song Swift has ever written. But the true gems of this wildly successful 2021 re-recording (which topped every chart in sight across the globe) are undoubtedly "Love Story," which resurfaces here with heightened sensibilities and deeper convictions, along with several songs "From The Vault," most notably "Mr. From Taylor Swift to Midnights, we've ranked all of the singer's studio albums from best to worst. This winning combination warrants countless replays and, even now, listening to this song more than 10 years later reminds many of us so strongly of a crush we had when we were younger. But as we all know, Taylor Swift isn't like other artists. We, the listeners, need a few more of our own sleepless nights, staying up drinking with Taylor and looking backward to definitively weigh our affection. Even so, there are simply too many placeholders on Lover's 18-track roster for it to fare well against her discography's worthier, meatier contenders. Dark, biting, sassy, and straight-up cool, in this track, Swift makes it known that she's here to play and no one can take her down: "But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time / Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Thus, Taylor Swift is reduced to the last spot on our ranking, partially by default, though also with respect and not without a good fight. This Taylor Swift discography is ranked from best to worst, so the top Taylor Swift albums can be found at the top of the list. It saw Swift push back at a narrative that saw her portrayed as vengeful and bitter, an image that had been thrust upon her by the media and exacerbated by her very public, very long-running beef with Kanye West (first started when he infamously interrupted Taylor Swifts acceptance speech at the VMAs, and regularly reignited by the Kardashian-West clan). And a follow-up to 1989 would always have big shoes to fill but Reputation lacked the stone-cold smashers Swift has proven time and time again shes capable of. Lover is a backtrack in a way. "Speak Now" comes in at no. It made sense then for this, her second studio album, which won her four Grammys including Album of the Year, to be the first altar in the "Taylor's Version" re-recording saga. Swifts surprise eighth album arrived with very little fanfare. But reputation is much more than an extended diss track; It's also a not-so-private ceremony for a new, hush-hush love affair (that years later blossoms into a now-rumored engagement to partner Joe Alwyn). Fearless. "This ain't for the best / My reputation's never been worse, so / You must like me for me," is a perfect thesis for the album as a whole on "Delicate," one of the LP's highpoints for its light-as-air ambiance, late night whispers coasting on a swirling current of synth waves. Painting the picture of an unravelling relationship, it gradually crescendos, climaxing in the gut-punch couplet of And you call me up again just to break me like a promise / So casually cruel in the name of being honest. It's humbling to hear a decades-defining artist at the absolute top of her career sing confessionals about self-loathing ("I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror") and toxic longing ("I hosted parties and starved my body / Like I'd be saved with a perfect kiss") with less inhibition than ever before. The albums standout tracks retain the narrative detail and clever metaphor-building that distinguished Swifts early songs, even amid the diversions wrought by the aggressive studio production on display throughout. Acoustic guitars, violins, and banjos enjoy free reign, dancing across tales of childhood friends destined for sparks, short-lived summer love, and backroad rendezvous. Teaming up with The Nationals Aaron Dessner (who worked on 11 of the 16 songs) and long-time collaborator Jack Antonoff, its a stunning collection of modern folk songs. The singers first four albums barely scan as country music in a meaningful way, instead embracing her preternatural gifts for pop conventions, and her output has gotten stronger the more openly shes embraced those skills. Then there's the true-to-life nostalgic musings of romantic naivety at fifteen and unrequited love looming on the high school bleachers. From Taylor Swift to Midnights, we've ranked all of the singer's studio albums from best to worst. Here Taylor sacked off her country roots and embraced full-blown pop. Many artists lucky enough to enjoy their 15 minutes of fame peak at the onset, delivering one or two tokens of pop culture product before a dwindling stream of less impressive ventures. It's hard to say. Keefe, Swifts third album, Speak Now, is problematic in precisely the same ways that its predecessors are, but there isnt a song here that isnt an absolute wonder of technical construction. She later builds upon this skill with an added emphasis on production and atmosphere, landing victorious (almost) every time. His contributions here are uniformly clean and efficient, but plenty of his signature production tics, even if theyre presented here in a fresh context, are beginning to feel overused. Standout tracks from my first few listens include "Anti-Hero" and "Maroon. As if a trump card she saved specially for its bridge, Taylor relinquishes a rare shriek of elation and dismay ("He looks up grinning like a devil!") There's no question her most recent two albums are related, as "Evermore" has a similar sound and features nods to "Folklore. Read on for a ranking of all of Swift's albums, from least to most iconic in descending order. Swift, of course, got her start writing astutely observed country ballads, and these songs bolster her trademark knack for lyric-crafting with maximalist, blown-out pop production courtesy of collaborators Max Martin and Jack Antonoff. In honor of her instant-classic, record-breaking new LP. All of Taylor Swift's Albums in order + Some unreleased, bonus, and soundtrack songs (only ones that are in a mostly complete state) in table form A mean/mode score calculator under each album Page 2 A macro-enabled automatic ranking table of each album's mean score, with colours that re-orders automatically as you score the songs on Page 1 Page 3 Keefe, Swifts seventh album, Lover, lacks a unified sonic aesthetic, ostensibly from trying to be something to everyone. Released as a surprise sister album to folklore, it focused on Swift's exploration of lyrical storytelling based on tales and experiences that weren't her own. By albums end, Swift assesses her crumbling empire and tattered reputation, discovering redemption in loveonly Reputation isnt so much a rebirth as it is a retreat inward. If you have a hard time taking a side, you can either click "I Like Both" or "No Opinion," though the catch is that the process might take longer. "Speak Now" comes in at no. ), and is occasionally clumsy in its comebacks. The record's tales unfold into imagined personal histories, with what Swift calls the "Teenage Love Triangle" songs (suspected to be "Cardigan," "August," and "Betty") painting three vivid portraits of an interwoven affair at different points in time. She gets the heavy hitters out of the way early, beginning with a last word in "I Forgot That You Existed," a wink and wave goodbye to social media swarms and energy sucks. Many listeners at the time of its 2017 release were less than thrilled by what they saw as pseudo-edgy antics, the equivalent of a prep having a bad day and reaching for black lipstick. The album has been described as escapist, cottagecore-inspired, and was written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. She draws from her accumulated life experience and musical insight to connect with her younger self, refining her past homages to youth with matured, knowing vocals (dropping her country inflection for a more rounded singsong). the album's opening track, and in the closing track, "New Year's Day," when we hear a stripped-down, piano-heavy ballad in which Swift sings emotion-filled lyrics. Whether thats emphasizing the wrong syllables of words because she hadnt quite mastered the meter of language (most notable on Teardrops on My Guitar) or mixing metaphors (on Picture to Burn and the otherwise catchy Our Song), theres a lack of polish and editing on Taylor Swift. And as critic Chris Willman wrote for The Hollywood Reporter in 2010, "Speak Now" saw Swift's music style mature while still keeping elements of her youth that her fans so adored in her previous two albums. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Its an effortless fusion that, like much of 1989, displays Swifts willingness to venture outside her comfort zone without much of a safety net, and test out an array of sonic experiments that feel both retro and of the moment. Almost 15 years ago, before the Grammy awards and international tours, a fresh-faced, 17-year-old Taylor Swift released her self-titled debut album. For the album ranking, I considered a few factors including cohesiveness, listening experience, the number and quality of standout songs, and if the album is musically interesting or lyrically special. It has a piano introduction reminiscent of "New Year's Day," a song about an enduring love. Whether it's a song about an ex or someone else who wronged her, Swift's clever, catchy "revenge tracks" have only continued to improve from here. Between those extremes is a reliable lineup of ultra-catchy mega-hits that infected the cultural consciousness through Top 40 countdowns and, later, TikTok videos. 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