Every Taylor Swift album, ranked

If the record-breaking release of Taylor Alison Swift’s Midnights proved anything, it was her place as one of the major players in the music world. The unprecedented hysteria around tickets for her worldwide Eras stadium tour and the feverish consumption of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) — it is the most streamed album in a single day in both 2023, so far, and in country music history — has only further confirmed her power. 

From country pop to full-fledged pop; ethereal 80s synths to bad bitch grunge to cottagecore, Taylor has had a lot of eras. Despite continuously moving between genres, her mainstay is intimate lyrics that speak deeply to her fans. As a result, not only has she formed a loyal fanbase ready to solve her unhinged games and clues with each release, but in recent years she’s been recognised by critics and audiences the world over as one of the greatest songwriters in history. She does not have a bad record in her ever-growing repertoire. And yet, one must trump them all. Here is every Taylor Swift album, ranked. 

SUBSCRIBE TO I-D NEWSFLASH. A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX ON FRIDAYS.

10. Evermore (2020)

The dark-sided sister album to Folklore, 2020’s alt-rock, folk-pop-tinged Evermore is recognised as Taylor continuing to push her sound further into unexpected, experimental realms after her surprise-drop folk album a few months prior. It works too, with Evermore, continuing to showcase Taylor’s unique storytelling and atmospheric world-building ability in each three minute track. It’s an album that scores the pensive moments over the cold, festive period, but that also means that, aside from “Willow”, “Champagne Problems” and “Dorothea”, there are few standout, memorable songs. This album is also tainted by the fact that it embodies the depressive, lonely energy of the second lockdown it was released in: a time none of us want to relive.

9. Taylor Swift (2006)

Taylor’s 2006 self-titled debut deserves credit for introducing us to the world’s biggest popstar du jour; one who, with each record, would give us songs for every moment of a relationship — whether that’s a soundtrack to the happy and giddy moments (on self-titled that’s “Our Song” or “I’m Only Me When I’m With You”), to cry in bed about a boy to (“Tim McGraw” or “Teardrops On My Guitar”) and tracks to scream and set fire to his belongings too (“Picture To Burn” or “Should’ve Said No”). But the album’s also set the tone for much of the rest of her career; writing music that spoke candidly about her feelings and external conflicts. Some moments on Taylor Swift were a little problematic — we don’t talk about the original gay-shaming lyrics to “Picture To Burn” — but she was just a girl, trying to find her place in this world. Now she’s grown up, and like a true ally, is doing the work (i.e. retroactively changing her lyrics).

8. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (2023)

Written while on tour alone as a teenager — in response to accusations from other country artists that she wasn’t a true musician — the lyrics of 2010’s Speak Now reflect Taylor’s adolescent age. That’s what gives the album its charm, though. From the highs and lows of figuring out dating culture outside of high school (“Dear John”, “Mine” and “Last Kiss”) to responding to both acclaim and unkind critiques from the adult world (“Long Live” and “Mean”), all over saccharine country pop and fairytale imagery, the record has a sweetly, otherworldly tone, heightened by her young country twang. Then there’s “Enchanted”, a lesser known track that often goes under-appreciated. 

On Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), a 32-year-old Taylor’s voice is stronger and more mature than it has ever been, but that also emphasises the distance between the Taylors of then and now. This evolved perspective is most obvious on the rewritten version of “Better Than Revenge”, a song which, despite its slut-shaming slant, spoke to the misogynistic societal narratives of the time. The line received an update from a Taylor with a more objective perspective on her dating situation at the time. 

We see the new Taylor, too, in the ‘From The Vault’ tracks: these previously unreleased songs from the era include “When Emma Falls In Love” and “Timeless”, where the cutesy banjos and ukeleles of the period are paired with the character studies Taylor is better known for now. Speak Now is an insight into a teen girl figuring out herself and her opinions in a 21st century world, making it the perfect nostalgia listen, incredibly of its time. Unfortunately, still number eight though.

7. 1989 (2014)

If you look up the mid-2010s in a dictionary, there should be a picture of the 1989 album cover. Taylor’s fourth record saw her discard the country twang and acoustic guitars entirely, instead taking inspiration from the signature synth and electropop of her birth year — a sound which has echoed through much of her work since. Ask a non-fan to name Taylor’s best song and they will probably say hater-ending “Shake It Off” or delulu-girl-anthem “Blank Space”. Regardless, it would be a track from 1989. Standouts include the retro-cool “New Romantics”, atmospheric “This Love” and power ballad “Wildest Dreams” — a song so soulful it features Taylor’s heartbeat as its rhythms. 1989 is an undeniably great album, but it is the start of a new sound for Taylor, one she went on to perfect.

6. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021)

The first rerecorded album in history to hit number one on the US album charts, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), set the tone for Taylor’s rereleases. The beauty of Fearless was its raw, coming-home-from-school-and-writing-in-your-diary energy. Despite her growing fame after her debut album, Taylor decided to stick to the feelings and observations of the everyday lives of young girls who made up, and still make up, the vast majority of her fandom. Emotional belter anthems like “Fearless” and “The Way I Loved You” go alongside sweetly-sappy rewrites of Shakespearean tragedies (“Love Story”) and songs inspired by secret crushes on fellow musicians (“Hey Stephen” and “You Belong With Me”), to create a record that is dripping in nostalgia and tween innocence.

5. Folklore (2020)

Christian Girl Fall came early in 2020 when Taylor dropped Folklore. It was late July, the sun was blaring down on us and yet we were in trench coats, cable knit cardis and hiking boots, walking through the woods with a flat white from an indie coffee shop in our hand and “Betty” blasting through our ears. A complete switch-up from its forebear, 2019’s Lover, Taylor dropped the heavy synths, introspective songwriting and rainbow-palette for mellow folk ballads, character arcs and cottagecore aesthetics. Like its follow up, Folklore is made to be streamed as one, but standouts do include love triangle trilogy “Cardigan”, “August” and “Betty”, as well as the beauty of heartbreak duet “Exile” with Bon Iver and the dreamy “Mirrorball”. However, Folklore brought with it a tsunami of new listeners for Taylor — longtime Swifties were shell-shocked to find their claims Taylor is one of the greatest songwriters of her generation finally being validated in the mainstream — which means we can also blame this album for why it is so hard to get a hold of tour tickets. Jail! 

4. Reputation (2017)

Taylor’s most underrated album was written when the popstar was done with the scrutiny and forced drama that came from the celeb world, deciding instead to embrace the “snake” accusations as part of a grungy Tumblr era aesthetic while going further into the retro EDM-pop and pulsating synths of its predecessor, 1989, with a much harsher edge. Launching her comeback in 2017 with the electropop single “Look What You Made Me Do”, which shocked with its stark new direction for Taylor, there’s no denying the “fuck you” energy of the track was iconic. But besides the trap and hip hop leanings of “Ready For It?” and “End Game” and the Kanye diss track “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” (the weakest elements of the record), Reputation contains some of Taylor’s most euphoric music to date in tracks like “Delicate”, “Gorgeous”, “Getaway Car”, “King of My Heart”, “Dress” and “Call It What You Want”. Plus we have this era to thank for directly inspiring Olivia Rodrigo, patron saint of the next gen of pop girls.

3. Lover (2019)

The beauty of 2019’s Lover is that it relishes in a freedom we hadn’t seen from Taylor in a long time. While her past records over the decade often responded to fame, the media and her reputation, here Taylor turned her eyes away from her global stage and instead to the fans who had supported her from the beginning, writing music that was introspective and vulnerable like her early work, except with the synth pop sound she’s honed over the years. Yes, the cringe millennial comes out in her in tracks such as “Me!” — a song that sounds tailor made to be covered by Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel in Glee — girlboss feminism bop “The Man” and WeHo gay anthem “You Need To Calm Down”, but any crimes are forgiven due to the album also holding some of her best work of all time including the brooding “Cruel Summer” with its orgasmic bridge, the brutality of “The Archer”, the jazzy fun of “False God” and the catchy reflection on contemporary politics that is “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince”.

2. Midnights (2022)

Never has a more relatable lyric been written than “it’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me” and a more millennial lyric than “draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man”. But Midnights feels like the result of long-cultivation by a seasoned Taylor, featuring the reflective storytelling of Folklore and Evermore with the angst, the emotional reckoning of Taylor’s early albums, and the synth-pop first explored on 1989, with a darker tone. 

A rumination on love, lust, revenge fantasies, heartbreak, spiralling and self-loathing, Taylor explores all of the things that have been keeping her up at night over the years, and there is not one subject worth skipping over. We’ve got catchy pure pop tracks like “Anti-Hero”, “Would’ve, Could’ve Should’ve” and “Paris”, disco-inflections on “Lavender Haze” and “Bejewelled”, and mellow, muted musings on “You’re On Your Own Kid”, “Sweet Nothing” and the Lana Del Rey-collab “Snow On The Beach”. In a period where Taylor is consistently looking back to rerecord her previous offerings, it was a reminder of just how far the star has come so far.

1. Red (Taylor’s Version) (2021)

Red has always held a special place in the hearts of young millennials and Gen Z. Released in 2012, Red was the peak of Taylor’s country pop sound at a time when she’d mastered how to write heartfelt, honest songs that reflected on her relationships, heartbreaks and desires to just have fun amidst the emotional chaos that made her fodder for tabloid media, and the confusing emotions teens of the moment were going through themselves. 

For many, it was their first ever breakup album and we were all lying on our beds crying to “All Too Well” and “I Almost Do”, thinking about our heartbreaking, non-existent love affairs or dancing with our besties, forgetting our world-ending worries to “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, “Starlight” and “Red”. Red is the height of Taylor’s deeply introspective, honest songwriting that pulled at the heartstrings of a generation, even if the mainstream viewed her artistry through the lens of whatever boy she was photographed with. 

The unprecedented success of it’s 2021 rerelease — employing the singer’s more mature vocals to get at the angst of first loves, the album is a deep exploration of her patented arena-rock-meets-country-pop, containing the strongest line up of ‘From The Vault’ tracks to date. Red validates what Swifties have known for a long time: that Taylor is, and always has been, a once-in-a-generation songwriter.