After spending the last two years re-recording some of those early releases, including Fearless and Red, Swift has returned with Midnights, her first album of new material since 2020s Evermore. 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. 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. Released in 2006, Swift's first studio album is so country that newer fans may barely recognize the songstress' sound considering she has experimented with a number of other genres since then. I also factored in critic reviews of the albums when deciding on the final ranking. 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. "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. Song for song, the album finds Swift at a new peak in her command of language. Perfectly Fine." The definitive ranking of Taylor Swift's 'Folklore' songs. 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. This is based on A. "Drew looks at me / I fake a smile so he won't see / that I want and I'm needin' / Everything that we should be" was as good as poetry, and a north star to the forlorning that looms in girlhood. 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" And, yes, her songwriting here is not quite fully actualized (as hindsight allows us to see now), but that doesn't diminish these songs' lasting splendor. This record at last acknowledges that, yes, a pop star idolized by young girls can also be a sexual being, singing of dirty daydreams and undressing with your eyes (the chorus on "Dress" even blatantly mimics the cadence of a mounting orgasm). After the runaway success of country-pop second record Fearless, for Speak Now elements of pop rock, bluegrass and soft rock were added into the mix. All in all, reputation is by far Taylor's most misunderstood work though its criticisms aren't without merit. But as we all know, Taylor Swift isn't like other artists. Unlike previous albums, no singles were released before the official album drop, and at 3 a.m. From Taylor Swift to Midnights, we've ranked all of the singer's studio albums from best to worst. And that's really all Swift, whose genius for conversational melodies and knack for giving every chorus a telling new twist every time around remain unmistakable trademarks.". As critic Jon Caramanica wrote for The New York Times in 2014, this album is filled with catchy pop tracks but it sets itself apart from mainstream music of that genre. Only vault songs are included. Though she only first arrived onto (and soon conquered) the popular music scene 16 years ago, the breadth and depth of her work seems more the stuff of a lifelong evolution, spanning multiple genres and breaking industry records almost every time around. But reputation's best serenade is also its most understated (and underrated): "New Years Day." 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. 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). 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. The All Taylor Swift Songs (including Midnights) Tier List below is created by community voting and is the cumulative average rankings from 190 submitted tier lists. Debut. In short, her seventh LP suffers from the common complaint waged even by adamant fans: when Taylor is good, she's great, and when she's not, well she's forgettable. Red is filled with top notch tunes: the brilliantly snarky We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Swifts first ever Billboard 100 Number One) and fizzing 22 are stone-cold smashers. Standout songs on the album include "The 1," which sets the tone of the album; "The Last Great American Dynasty," a folk song-esque storytelling in Swift's signature style; and "Exile," two perspectives on a broken love story (the lyric video shows off the mirroring narratives well). 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. Consider how the instrumentation drops out during the last two words of the hook in Last Kiss, allowing the singers breathy vocal delivery to bear the entirety of the songs emotional weight, or how a simple acoustic guitar figure on Enchanted slowly crescendos behind each repetition of the line I was enchanted to meet you. Unfortunately, the greater complexity and range found in Swifts sound and in her song constructions doesnt necessarily translate to her songwriting. folklore is a backward glance over your shoulder clouded by a cold air exhale and it remains Taylor's greatest work to date. Top that, Shakespeare. Perhaps even more impressive is Swifts mastery of song structure. And I'm telling you, it's going to be a journey. Rather, their relative simplicity only adds to Fearless' charm, bridging the old with the new a woman's voice singing a girl's anthems to make a once good album now great. 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. 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. Jonathan Keefe. 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. 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. Related: Ranking Taylor Swift's 10 Most Viewed Music Videos. She also notably upgrades the production, as a Professor of Commercial Music explains to EW, with subtle shifts towards a fuller-bodied musical accompaniment (no longer a one-dimensional country backing), re-layering instruments along with slight switch-ups in tempo. What follows is a collection of stone-cold glimpses into the ripple effect discontentment has on relationships: the sadness of a seasonal lover, affection and effort met with indifference, infidelity ending in death. At just 20-years-old before she had even fully blossomed out of country's genre barriers Taylor had mastered the delicate balance of detailing the life moments blurred between adolescence and adulthood. The worlds defining voice in music and pop culture: breaking whats new and whats next since 1952. The difficulty (and, perhaps, the beauty) of attempting to order her albums is that 1) she's been so consistently good, and 2) whichever albums harbor your affections most can change by the year, month, day, and even hour depending on your headspace and heartache. 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. Released in 2008, "Fearless" steps away from country and edges into pop in an impressive balance of the two as Swift continues to develop a style that is uniquely hers. She's endlessly accessible, easy to understand even in her later, more cryptic works, yet her songwriting is also a blank space (*cue pen-click*) ripe for filling in your personal memories and private associations. 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. Fearless. If nothing else, the album proves shes unwilling to operate on anyones terms other than her own. As if the gift of folklore's acoustic stylings wasn't a treat enough, Taylor conceived a surprise sister album like clockwork during her end-of-year creative storm, amidst filming the Long Pond Studio Sessions documentary and re-recording Fearless. 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. Drag and drop items from the bottom and put them on your desired tier. Although "Folklore" may not have the mainstream appeal of her previous albums, it's an album longtime fans will appreciate as it highlights her stellar songwriting and pays homage to her acoustic roots. The spectacular The Last Great American Dynasty describes the life of American artist Rebekah Harkness (whose Rhode Island house Swift bought in 2013) with vivid descriptive lyrics. 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. In fact, most every song is stripped to a softer core than we've ever heard from Taylor before, with the exception of some past anomalies (re: Reputation's "New Years Day"). Modify tier labels, colors or position through the action bar on the right. Swift closes the non-deluxe edition of "1989" with "Clean," which adheres to the pop theme but is more low-key and showcases the heartfelt, haunting songwriting she's known for: "The drought was the very worst / When the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst / It was months and months of back and forth / You're still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can't wear anymore.". Then there are the hopeful messages embedded in the minor-keys of "marjorie," an homage to her opera-singing grandmother, and "happiness," the chorus of which captures the album's essence best of all: "There'll be happiness after me / But there was happiness because of me.". 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. 40 "Should've Said No" Swift's uptempo. 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