Taylor Swift's discography (Kristen's version).
Collage by Sally North. Album artwork believed to belong to either the publisher of the work or the artist.
Let me start by saying that—of course—I’ve heard Taylor Swift’s music before. I’ve just never actively listened to it. I never had the desire to press play on a Taylor Swift song in my life, but that isn’t born out of any hate for the woman! I was raised a hip hop head with a soft spot for soulful R&B, admittedly a product of being a Black man from the Bronx. Being squarely outside of her target demographic, Swift has always felt like a dime-a-dozen popstar to me, her hit songs constantly peppering radio stations and retail store playlists nationwide.
That all changed this summer, shortly after Swift rolled out her re-recorded edition of Speak Now. “The Eras Tour” had been consuming headlines (and Instagram feeds) for months, with hordes of fans raving about the experience. My friend Melody Dias secured tickets for November 2024 (!!) in anticipation that it’ll be the best night of her life. In fact, another friend of mine, Josh Enebo, caught a show in Minneapolis and went this far: “[t]o say it was the best live performance I’ve been to is deeply insufficient. It was magisterial and emotional to an extent that I cannot put into words.”
Alright dude.
Accounts like these moved me to finally give Swift’s ten albums a complete, honest try. What’s more, her ongoing battle for the ownership of her own music is commendable, and now seems like the perfect time to get into her catalog. Seeing an artist eclipse 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify, break every touring record in the book, and receive comparisons in celebrity to Michael Jackson himself, I wanted to understand this moment a little more. I always knew she was popular, but not to this extent. Swift has engulfed so much, to the point that “The Eras Tour” feels like music’s first monocultural moment in years. Where had such an audience come from, and does the music vindicate it?
To make sure I knew what I was getting into, I enlisted those two Swift-obsessed friends to guide me through each tracklist. With their help, I listened to all ten albums, from her self-titled debut to her most recent Midnights. Here are my first impressions, chronologically.
Taylor Swift
Swift’s self-titled debut album stands alone as her only outwardly country effort. The youth of her 2006 voice immediately grabs you on tracks like the opener, “Tim McGraw” and the heartfelt standout “Teardrops on My Guitar.” In terms of a favorite track—and the only one I downloaded—her youthful twang works best on “Should’ve Said No,” where she rejects an unfaithful partner looking for a second chance. With serious energy from a prominent guitar line and a sweet violin that stings after the first chorus, it’s a big highlight. But, as much as her vocals are impassioned and emotional, they just as easily become whiny and grating on tracks like “Our Song” and “Picture to Burn.” The former at least commits to being endearingly corny, while the latter features verses that would’ve hit harder if they weren’t backed by directionless guitar plucks. Josh counters that the violin at the start, Swift’s cheery vocals, and catchy lyrics combine to make “Our Song” a certified summer banger. I was skewered for not appreciating that track, which seems to be a fan favorite. Outside of its distinct but dated sound, there wasn’t much to write home about Swift’s eponymous debut.
Fearless (Taylor’s Version)
Most of Fearless is just good enough. With that said, standouts “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me” were hits for a reason. Both are absolutely infectious earworms that deserve the adoration they get. Also, the piano rendition of “Forever & Always” turns the song into a proper ballad, wrestling with the self-doubt that springs from hot-and-cold relationships: “Was I out of line? / Did I say something way too honest?” She continues flashing her songwriting chops with incisive lyrics: “It rains when you’re here and it rains when you’re gone” and “What happened, please tell me / Cause one second it was perfect / Now you’re halfway out the door.” Conversely, the youth of her voice on songs like “Fifteen” is both structurally necessary, albeit annoying. I found the vast majority of Swift’s sophomore record oddly uninteresting. To his credit, Josh called my take on Fearless a horrifying opinion, especially finding my dislike of “Jump Then Fall” an indictment of my taste. This sounds minor, but the way Swift drifts into her upper register to say “jump” every time on the chorus irritates me. Those tracks, and Fearless as a whole, are just a bit too cheesy.
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)
Now we’re talking. Speak Now starts with a bang, opening with the lovely, nostalgic “Mine,” that sees Swift give a good partner his rightful flowers, as well as the brutally honest “Back to December,” where she takes accountability (for once) in an effort to right a previous wrong. Highlights galore fill this tracklist: the anthemic “Haunted;” the hopeful “Long Live;” the wholesome “Superman;” and the admonishing “Foolish One,” a vault track that serves as a cautionary tale against chasing unrequited love. For my money, the crown jewel of Speak Now has to be the powerhouse “The Story of Us,” one of my favorite Taylor songs. I’ve basically lived through this song before, but it’s written in such a way that, even if you haven’t, you feel like you have by the end of it. Have you ever “heard silence quite this loud?” People constantly rave about her songwriting, and “The Story of Us” is a marvelous example. Nearly the whole song is quotable, but the end of the chorus sums it up well: “the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now.” What’s more, the instrumentation is explosive and Swift’s vocals have a phenomenal weight to them. Both of these qualities shine throughout the album. Having started this adventure in July, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) was the album my friends hooked me with. Credit to them: I enjoyed it.
Red (Taylor’s Version)
I could spend this entire section raving about the tour de force that is the ten minute version of “All Too Well,” but that would be a disservice to Taylor Swift’s best record. Melody called Red the quintessential breakup album, and I get why. The record finds Swift, to no one’s surprise, caught in the throes of love and heartbreak. But here, she dives into an unrivaled level of narrative detail. You’ve got the clever title track where she maps various feelings in a relationship to colors. “I Almost Do” sees Swift fighting the urge to reconnect with someone from her past, the push and pull of which she illustrates masterfully. The ballad “The Moment I Knew” documents the embarrassment of a broken promise. The deliciously spiteful Chris Stapleton-assisted “I Bet You Think About Me” features jeering lines like “I bet it’s hard to believe / But it turned out I’m harder to forget than I was to leave.” Man. And then there’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” my favorite song in her discography. An extended cut of a fan favorite that was initially shelved due to its length, the vault track took on an almost mythical nature among Swifties, as it became the longest song to ever take the #1 spot on the weekly Billboard Hot 100. The song came on as I was walking home from an evening workout while staring into a nice California sunset, and my jaw was on the floor for most of it. The specificity and emotion of her lyrics absolutely shines throughout, and having been in a long term relationship myself, everything you remember “all too well” comes flooding back. There’s no empty space, no wasted time: you feel every second of this ten-minute, twelve-second opus. “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” is Swift at the peak of her powers, as is Red.
1989
Is it crazy to say that 1989 is carried by its best singles? “Blank Space” is so perfect that it’s always been a guilty pleasure of mine. For a long time I stuck to my take that “I don’t listen to Taylor but ‘Blank Space’ is awesome,” and for good reason. Her vocals are so earnestly playful and bubbly that it’s impossible to not chant the stinger “You know I love the players, and you love the game.” I didn’t even know I knew the whole chorus until now: it was somewhere imprinted in my mind. The bridge too! Elsewhere, her vocals on “Wildest Dreams” are phenomenal, especially a striking falsetto on the chorus. I find Swift’s lower register generally underwhelming, but it works wonders on both the first verse and the last pre-chorus. My friends were shocked I didn’t recognize the grand ‘80s-revivalism of “Style,” but that was certainly a treat as well. I’m not sure the rest of 1989 stacks up, though. “Welcome to New York” is an awkward opener, and I still hate the brattiness of “Shake It Off” and “Bad Blood.” Don’t get me started on the Kendrick Lamar remix of the latter. Most of the album does have a baseline of digestibility that allowed me to enjoy the listen, even if it wasn’t the most daring project. It does stand as her first foray into being unabashedly pop, so I suppose the direction was adventurous for her. I also appreciated its relatively tight tracklist of thirteen songs, although that’ll change soon: as I’m writing this, Swift is rolling out the “Taylor’s Version” of 1989. I’ll tune in for the unheard vault tracks that’ll give us something to look forward to at the end of October.
Reputation
Yikes. Going from 1989 to Reputation has to be some form of self-sabotage. What some call her best project was directly followed up by her worst. To be fair, Swift’s reputation was arguably at its lowest point during the album’s rollout, so at least the name was apt. I don’t really need to trash a record that many fans and critics agree is in the basement of her catalog, but allow me to indulge. With all the drama surrounding her celebrity, the megastar took ample opportunity to stave off the haters and doubters, delivering overly angsty, sassy songs like “Look What You Made Me Do.” She would do well to stop whining about her “big reputation, ahh” on the milquetoast cut “End Game,” which features both the rap icon Future on autopilot and a surprisingly decent verse from Ed Sheeran. You get the feeling she wanted to come across as intimidating, self-assured, and empowered, but failed to stick the landing on any of the above, sounding insecure more than anything. She even tries her hand at rapping on a handful of tracks like the opening “...Ready For It?” which falls incredibly flat. Swift’s constant addressing of detractors throughout Reputation reminded me of Eminem’s angry, awful Kamikaze, where even the songs that aren’t self-important are still equally as forgettable. Other than the passable “Delicate” and “New Years’ Day,” there’s nothing here I can imagine coming back to.
Lover
Lover is so average that I’m struggling to put my thoughts on it into words. At the very least, it’s mostly listenable, unlike its predecessor. I’d best describe it as focus group music: art made for the least common denominator. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as someone’s gotta make music to soundtrack Forever 21 outlets across the country. Where Reputation was dark and moody, Lover finds Swift newly re-energized, with a general positivity underscored by the cover’s bright pink, bubblegum aesthetic. Even with this conceptual foundation, the music itself did not represent any new frontiers for her artistry. There isn’t a lot of outright bad material on the project, but so much of it feels microwaveable. Regarding the lowlights, the intended bounce of “You Need to Calm Down” (not to mention the lackadaisical songwriting) feels so forced and empty. The performances of both Swift and Brendan Urie on “ME!” are supremely grating, and the whole song exudes the energy of a Disney Channel original. Maybe that’s the vibe these singles were going for, but it does nothing for me. Even the falsetto-heavy “Cruel Summer,” which has seen a 2023 resurgence, is just alright, although certainly more competent than the other singles. Swift does manage to find a pulse on “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” which features a fantastic bridge that hits almost out of nowhere. I also have to shout out “False God” for its buttery sax-led instrumentation. Still, Lover is a forgettable album all-around.
Folklore
I said Lover didn’t add anything distinct to Swift’s catalog. She certainly rectified that with Folklore. Written in the throes of the pandemic, this sixteen-song collection drops the glitzy sheen for much more rustic ruminations on life and love. Credit is due for Swift making such a dynamic, intentional change away from her traditional soundscapes, but it doesn’t prevent Folklore from sounding like one very long song. Generally, the singer-songwriter aesthetic calls for a strong, captivating voice to carry softer, stripped-back instrumentation—and that’s a voice which I’m afraid Swift just doesn’t have. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver has a striking feature on “Exile” that creates a fantastic example, though. The stirring piano-driven duet features a great contrast between Vernon’s rough baritone and Swift’s smooth falsetto. Easily my favorite song here. Another vocal highlight is “My Tears Ricochet,” especially with the bridge and last chorus where her tempered voice breaks ever so slightly, teeming with sorrow from the fallout of betrayal. Additionally, “Illicit Affairs” takes a nuanced angle to infidelity, cautioning that the “longing stares [...] born from just one single glance” and the “dwindling, mercurial high” of keeping secrets have an inevitably short shelf life. It’s a fantastically written song. Even though I won’t have Folklore on repeat, I understand its appeal. At the end of the day, Swift employs an unfamiliar tone while tackling familiar subject matter.
Evermore
Premiering a short five months after its sister Folklore, Evermore finds Swift in a similar headspace. She’s again working with artists like Justin Vernon and Jack Antonoff and again creating cozy, home-body compositions with intentionally bare-bones arrangements and intimate narratives. On Instagram, even Taylor herself admitted that the two projects were borne from the same sessions: “it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in.” So, naturally, many of my thoughts on Evermore mirror those of Folklore. Bon Iver’s presence again generates my favorite moment here: the titular outro is a gripping narrative journey from the depths of pain and sorrow to a light at the end of the tunnel, reflected in the reversal of the last chorus. These two need to work together more. She also collaborates with The National, led by Matt Berninger, on “Coney Island” and similar fireworks spark. Structurally, I love the impact of Berninger’s vocals here for the same reasons as Vernon’s on “Exile” and “Evermore.” I find this era less bitter than much of her pop music, instead far more mature. Such maturity pops up on another mental health focused cut “Happiness,” as Swift concedes that “There'll be happiness after you / But there was happiness because of you” and laments that “No one teaches you what to do / When you hurt a good man / And you know you hurt him too.” She’s stepping into the maturity that comes with age. Big picture, though: I wish I found Evermore and Folklore more distinguishable from one another, but if her own words are anything to go by, both should essentially be seen as equals in her discography. They’re solid.
Midnights
After delivering two projects far outside of her comfort zone, I suppose Swift wanted to remember how it felt to make mass appeal pop again, plenty of which peppers her most recent Midnights. I’d need someone to show me any redeeming qualities in any of the lazy singles “Anti-Hero,” “Lavender Haze,” and “Karma,” which later received an Ice Spice verse that somehow made it even worse. I struggled finishing this album, and the singles were far from the only offenders. I’ll concede that “Sweet Nothing” is, in fact, a sweet spin on the romantic phrase it’s titled after. Also, the “Snow on the Beach” remix rectified not originally having enough Lana Del Rey by adding, well, more Lana Del Rey. The highlights pretty much end there. Moody non-starter “Vigilante Shit” resembles her 2017 album that will not be named. Swift can't be authentically brooding or intimidating, no matter how many hi hats and bass drops she adds. The bouncy “Bejeweled” tries to be playfully sly, but many of the lyrics sound like major overcompensating. Addressing (surprise!) a man who did her wrong, she claims “When I walk in the room / I can still make the whole place shimmer / And when I meet the band / They ask, “Do you have a man?” / I could still say I don’t remember,” but is she trying to convince him or herself of that? Finally, the lyrical concept of “Question…?” works much better than the actual result: Swift fails to find a pocket she enjoys for more than twenty seconds at a time, yet the whole thing is pretty flat. Flat, actually, is a good word to describe most of Midnights. So bland that it leaves no impression.
So, where’s this leave us? Is Taylor Swift’s music a legitimate catalyst for such universal praise and cult-like adoration? Probably not. But, these questions are far bigger than any single person can answer, and she has connected with fans around the world who feel seen by and through her music. She writes so much of it in the first and second person (I really found myself liking lots of the second person lyricism) that it’s incredibly easy to insert yourself into the narratives she weaves.
Tying up those narratives makes personal knowledge of her “lore” integral to many of her songs. Traditionally, heartbreak songs are centered around anonymous men and women, but Swift’s life and relationship status has become inseparable from her music, with her fans latching onto every last word in order to feel connected to that life.
Although such tendencies are inevitably parasocial, you can’t fault people for feeling feelings, and if listening to Taylor’s hundredth song about an ex is therapy for you, I can’t knock it. I walk away recognizing her undeniable skill as a songwriter, even with unremarkable vocal performances and underwhelming instrumental choices throughout her catalog.
And, what about that catalog? If I had to rank them, the ten albums sort nicely into three tiers. Lover, Midnights, and Reputation were tedious listening experiences and I wish I could reclaim the time I spent with them. Then there’s the decent class of Taylor Swift, Fearless, Folklore, and Evermore. These four are all middling records with some highlights sprinkled in. The top tier, then, is 1989, Speak Now, and my favorite, Red. I enjoyed these projects, all three of which have serious gems I can keep in rotation.
At the end of the day, Taylor Swift is a songwriting titan who’s probably at her career’s apex as we speak. She deserves all the credit in the world for the movement she’s created—and she’s surely getting it. Don’t be surprised when 1989 (Taylor’s Version) sells over a million copies in its first week this fall.
edited by Eric Harwood.
collage by Sally North.
album artwork believed to belong to either the publisher of the work or the artist.
