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It's the album that immortalized her in the cultural ethos (for the first time around), delivering instant classics in "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" that are forever fan favorites no matter how far her style and sensibilities have evolved. Like folklore, much of evermore is made up of somber soliloquies that materialize like a fine mist over a field in the dead of winter. No one would have blamed her for taking a well-deserved creative hiatus after that marathon of releases, but Taylor has proven herself to be an artist of momentum multiple times over. But what's never changed is Taylor's enchanting ability to translate a memory whether charmed or trying into a moment that feels like yours. Here are the 40 biggest Taylor Swift songs, based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 (through the chart dated December 17, 2022). ", As Craig Jenkins for Vulture put it, "Although the album fixates on big enemies and bad reputations, the buried lede is a quiet romance budding in spite of them. Paul Attard, Considering that Swifts previous material was almost always better when she tossed the ill-fitting country signifiers and focused on her uncanny gift for writing pop hooks, Red was a smart, if overdue, move for the singer. In the song, she celebrates a level of stardom that she'd continue to exponentially build upon in the years to come: "And bring on all the pretenders / One day, we will be remembered. Taylor Swift surprise-released her eighth album "Folklore" on July 24, 2020. In every instance, whats noteworthy is Swifts precision in communicating her exact intent. Note: hitting 'no opinion' or 'I like both' frequently will negatively affect your results. Overall, the beauty of revisiting Red is that many of us, at points high and low, have related to its caustic, dizzying array of emotion, tracing the nonlinear trajectory of falling in love, breaking your heart, and putting it back together again. Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince, however, is her stock in trade, a richly painted narrative punctuated by cool synth washes and pep-rally chants, while The Archer is quintessential Swift: wistful, minimalist dream pop that displays her willingness to acknowledge and dismantle her own flaws, triggers, and neuroses. Songs like I Know Places ride a reggae swagger and trap-influenced snare beats before launching into a soaring, Pat Benatar-esque chorus. Only time will tell if "Midnights" will climb up my ranking, but as a new album amidst an outstanding discography, more time is needed to test how well it stands out from the rest. Where her debut guaranteed she was, at the very least, a momentary sensation, it wasn't until 2008's Fearless that the world understood the musical force that Taylor Swift could be. 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). From the first track, you know this album isn't like what you've been hearing on the radio it opens with the synthetic beats and sounds of "Welcome to New York.". Fearless, however, just as strongly made the case that Swift had the goods for a long, rich career. Taylor Swift's 10 seminal albums, ranked In honor of her instant-classic, record-breaking new LP Midnights , here's EW's ranking of Taylor Swift's 10 studio albums from her illustrious career. taylor swift albums Tier List Maker - TierLists.com taylor swift albums Press the labels to change the label text. Copyright 2023 Meredith Corporation. escaped the fate of Pharrell in Minions or Timberlake in Trolls). In honor of her instant-classic, record-breaking new LP. Back in 2006, a little-known country singer called Taylor Swift released her debut single Tim McGraw. 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. It's hard to say. 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. On Swifts second album she still kept things country, but this time the pop edge that defined later releases was more evident. The Definitive Ranking of Every Song on Taylor Swift's 1989 Grammy winner's fifth studio album is officially out today, and we cannot stop listening to these top five songs By Jenna Mullins. Taylor Swift albumsTaylor Swift - 1989Credit: Big Machine, Fall Music Preview Most Anticipated Albums, Taylor Swift albumsTaylor Swift - Speak NowCredit: Big Machine. 8 Taylor Swift (2006) Written during her freshman year of high school, Taylor Swift's debut eponymous album was young Swift trying to find her real voice. Swift dropped a "special very chaotic surprise" in the form of seven bonus tracks. The album finds Swift living up to all of the praise she earned for her songwriting earlier in career. Editors Note: This article was originally published on July 6, 2021. Immediate highlights include tracks like "Willow," an upbeat song that transports listeners back to the "Folklore" universe. Thus, her 10th album is at the neutral midpoint on this list, though Midnights' careful metaphors are some of the best mirrors for abstract projection and self-reflection that listeners will find on this list. 'All You Had To Do Was Stay' - '1989' Article Continues Below Don't get me wrong, "All You Had To Do Was Stay" is an amazing song that fits perfectly into. "Marjorie," track 13 on "Evermore," is about Swift's grandmother. Then there's the true-to-life nostalgic musings of romantic naivety at fifteen and unrequited love looming on the high school bleachers. While tracks like Cardigan and Invisible Strings hinge on protracted metaphors, Mad Woman and Peace are blunt and plainspoken. Some stories are symphonic semi-pop anthems ("Enchanted," "Haunted"), while others are country ballads dressed with electric guitars, as seen in "Dear John"'s interrogation of a 32-year-old lover's sway on a still-teen girl ("Don't you think 19's too young to be played by your dark, twisted games?"). Expectations were sky high, raising the stakes with them; just how close can Taylor fly to the sun? The album has been described as escapist, cottagecore-inspired, and was written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many more parallels to past albums, as revisiting life moments already explored in her previous songs creates yet another treasure map of topics for knowledgeable fans. this includes her entire catalogue/discography and eras debut to evermore. But over a decade later, Taylor makes the incredible move of re-recording her teenaged relics almost note-for-note, now at 31 years old. But folklore is more a shuffled series of vignettes than a throughlined story, planting the lyrics with easter eggs recurring motifs (a favorite cardigan), places (cobblestone paths), and events (pulling up in a car, professing love on the porch) to offer conflicting perspectives of a love long ago lost. Your email address will not be published. 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. At the time of publishing, we're just over two weeks past our first listen, still internalizing the record's themes of loneliness and loathing, insecurity and insomnia. I don't love the way the writer described some of the albums (saying Taylor sounds like a stay at home mom? Taylor Swift's "Folklore" album cover was photographed by Beth Garrabrant. "Should've Said No" carries the same torch with a steadier hand, being one of the three songs she penned completely on her own. ), and is occasionally clumsy in its comebacks. Look, Reputation served a purpose. The rest of the record sees relationships rise and fall like once-great empires reduced to dust, each an individual tragedy set to incessantly hooky choruses. But for every purely excellent song off 1989 ("Out Of The Woods," "Clean") there's invariably a hollow foil track, the worst offenses, of course, being "Shake It Off" and "Bad Blood." But in the meantime, Midnights remains on repeat with high regard. Its not just the shock drop that felt different, though, as musically it saw Swift dive head-first into a new sonic palette of wistful indie-folk. The music of folklore takes its time to unfurl, ivory keys yawning at dusk, acoustic strings waking at daybreak. Swift has proven herself capable of laughing at herself, thereby defusing the criticisms often levied at her, but with Reputation she created a larger-than-life caricature of the petty, vindictive snake shes been made out to be. All necessary praise aside, one of the great joys of tracing Taylor Swift's arc is seeing her sound bleed across genres, from country and pop to (half-baked) hip-hop and folk and back. 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. Whilst it has less T-Swiz classics than other releases, across the board its one of Swifts strongest albums, bursting with catchy morsels. Ten albums, a mantelpiece of awards and over a decade later, Swift has become one of the biggest popstars on the planet. Pam Grier reflects on her most iconic roles, from Coffy to Jackie Brown. Still, what some may see as folklore's central weakness is in actuality its greatest strength. Despite the pandemic, 2020 was a big year for the artist, who released two surprise albums and secured her first Album of the Year nomination since her 2015 record, 1989. It's Taylor's first autobiographical album in three years, after an incredible pivot to fiction in folklore and evermore followed by re-recording Fearless and Red (with the latter three all dropping in 11 months' time). 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 is based on A. As ever, Swift deftly pivots from upbeat tracks to sad ballads with devastating bridges that make you want to cry your eyes out. The bridge to Fifteen includes a great, revealing line about a friends lost innocence (And Abigail gave everything/She had to a boy/Who changed his mind/And we both cried), while the playful melody of Hey Stephen captures the essence of what makes for indelible teen-pop. "Swift's usual approach to dabbling in new genres or sounds is to go balls-to-the-wall, but on 'evermore,' she's just as good at curating these more detailed production flourishes, all with the same contouring and meticulousness as she does with her best lyrics," she wrote. It marks a shift from the retro-minded pop-rock of 1989 toward a harder, more urban aesthetic, and Swift wears the stiff, clattering beats of songs like Ready for It? like body armor. As J. English penned for NPR in 2017, this album really helped solidify Swift's identity in the music world. It's the stuff of shared languages, not unlike our own pensive journal entries when we had nowhere else to turn but the page. 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. "Evermore" takes us deeper into the mystical music-writing forest established by "Folklore," but like many sequels, it doesn't resonate as powerfully as the original. And the majority of Lover proves her path to better things, being an airy, whipped topping "love letter to love," both for the self and for a partner. Her detour is immediately apparent with a simple piano opening on "the 1," as piano chords echo a slight reverb off a guitar's strum-claps, while melancholy ballad "exile" (feat. Taylor is again musically faithful to the source material she spawned, honoring her then 22-year-old self by jeering and tearing up right on que, though this time with an inherent air of maturity. The imagery for the album was filled with snakes, and lyrics subtly (and at times, not so subtly) addressed their falling out. Perhaps compensating for that previous album's wave of negative press, Taylor here returns to her tried-and-true toolbox, leaning into romantic whim and angelic daydreams: living room waltzes, paper promise rings, sneaking through gardens, skipping down streets. 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. The tracks combined her typical impressive storytelling abilities while tying together strong emotions of frustration that feel at home in "Reputation" (seen in the track "The Man") as well as stories of falling in love and almost losing it that feel at home in "Speak Now" or "Red" (as seen in "Cornelia Street"). But as Pitchfork critic Anna Gaca pointed out, the album may be honest and genuine, but it feels uneven with how much it sways from garish pop singles like "ME!" 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!") Reputation is, without a doubt, Taylor's most polarizing work to date. Swifts cottage-core diptych felt innovative in how they rebuilt Swifts sound from the ground up, but despite its own idiosyncratic delights, Midnights ultimately feels too indebted to her past efforts to truly push her forward. On this record, Swifts took her new sound and ran with it with thrilling results. In this critical-darling album, Swift has done away with over-the-top production, catchy lyrics, and any sort of hit-making formulas and instead presents a stripped-back collection of songs with captivating stories and, in true Swift form, incredible lyrics. 1989 is a masterclass in how to make a timeless pop record. "Entirely self-penned, sans the collaborations of the previous albums, it's an enormous breakthrough in songwriting maturity, while hardly forsaking the childlike lack of pretense that made earlier efforts such guilt-free ear candy," wrote Willman. He's right "Folklore" further cements the fact that Swift is in a league all her own and cannot be placed in a stylistic box when it comes to her music. In an album review for Variety, critic Chris Willman wrote, "For some fans, it might take a couple of spins around the block with this very different model to become re-accustomed to how there's still the same power under the hood here. That early nuance and the fact that she wrote this entire album completely on her own is no small feat. It isnt the weight of the subject matter alone that makes Folklore feel so vitalits the exemplary caliber of her writing. 176. Swifts most recent release is a glittering return to pure-pop music. "Epiphany," track 13 on "Folklore," is written with Swift's grandfather in mind. It's a melancholy that allows you to wallow on the condition of looking forward after the fact, holding nothing back as you let everything go. The euphoric Mastermind takes it one step further, where on it Swift admits: No one wanted to play with me as a little kid/So Ive been scheming like a criminal ever since/To make them love me and make it seem effortless/This is the first time Ive felt the need to confess. The albums lyrics only serve to bolster that perception: Swift comes off like a frazzled stay-at-home mom scolding her disobedient children on Look What You Made Me Do and This Is Why We Cant Have Nice Things. But its her willingness to portray herself not as a victim, but the villain of her own story that makes Reputation such a fascinatingly thorny glimpse inside the mind of pops reigning princess. What makes Evermore an essential addition to her catalog is her willingness to tell others stories with the same insight and compassion with which shes always told her own. 1,062 Likes, 2 Comments - BLKPIK IDI ( ) (@blackpink.india) on Instagram: "#TaylorSwift, BLACKPINK and #OliviaRodrigo are the only female artists ranking inside IFPI's Top 10" 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. Her self-titled debut stood as her lone and tall titan at the time of its 2006 release, which was immediately met with commercial and critical success, catapulting a then-16-year-old Swift to stardom almost overnight. On Red (Taylors Version), we got the spellbinding 10-minute version of the song, an epic rendition that cements the tunes place as a songwriting triumph. 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