Taylor Swift’s Albums: Ranked from Worst to Best
Taylor Swift is a mega-star, and her profile as a celebrity and as a marketing genius can overshadow her musical abilities. Opinions on Swift are wildly diverse – she’s sometimes dismissed as disposable music for teenage girls, and sometimes highly regarded and respected.
Swift is an adept songwriter, particularly as a lyricist, utilising her storytelling abilities to pepper her songs with interesting details and memorable phrases. She’s equally capable with upbeat, poppy material and slower, more brooding tracks. At the same time, her songs are straightforward musically, and she operates in the mainstream contexts of pop and country-pop. It’s an interesting exercise to try to find comparisons for her in pop music’s past – Swift is equal parts a carefully manicured image-maker like Madonna and an uncluttered and robust songwriter like Carole King or Tom Petty.
Starting her career young, Swift has already built a very respectable back catalogue where each of her seven albums to date has a different flavour. She has beloved deep cuts – lots of her dedicated fans gravitate to lengthy, soul-baring tracks like ‘All Too Well’ and ‘Dear John’. Swift’s songs are robust enough to stand up to acoustic solo performances – respected alt-country star Ryan Adams covered 1989 in its entirety.
Taylor Swift’s Albums Ranked
Taylor Swift
#7, 2006
Taylor Swift was 16 years old when she recorded her debut album, launching her career. I don’t enjoy the smooth country sound, but there’s already a very talented writer here. My favourite song is the one she wrote in twenty minutes for her school talent show in her freshman year at high school, which benefits from the twangy arrangement and the southern affectation in Swift’s vocals (she’s actually from Pennsylvania)
Favourite Song: ‘Our Song’
Our song is a slamming screen door
Sneaking out late tapping on your window
Reputation
#6, 2017
After a tough time with the media, Swift’s tucked away in her bunker for Reputation, firing shots at the world with songs like ‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things’ and ‘Look What You Made Me Do’. Swift is putting as much effort into self-expression as into crafting good songs and Reputation ends up as a disorienting mix of pop songs and darker, more personal material. I listen to Reputation more than her early country albums, but it’s a little disappointing after two near perfect pop albums.
Favourite Song: ‘Getaway Car’
I knew it from the first Old Fashioned, we were cursed
We never had a shotgun shot in the dark
Speak Now
#5, 2010
2010’s Speak Now is notable as the album that Swift wrote alone, without any collaborators, and it’s a fan favourite on account of personal songs like ‘Dear John’ and ‘Back to December’. There’s a lot of good material, but it’s in need of an editor, as fourteen songs stretch out to nearly 70 minutes. Even though Swift’s transition from country to pop was gradual, Speak Now is the last of her albums that I’d classify as country.
Favourite Song: ‘Mine’
You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter
Fearless
#4, 2008
Fearless is my favourite record from Swift’s early country-pop phase. Stylistically it’s wider reaching than her debut, from upbeat material like the Olympic anthem ‘Change’ and the joyous ‘Love Story’, to gentle acoustic ruminations like ‘Fifteen’ and ‘Best Day’. My favourite is the tuneful melodrama of ‘Breathe’, a string laden ballad with Swift bidding farewell to a band-mate.
Favourite Song: ‘Breathe’
Never wanted this, never wanna see you hurt
Every little bump in the road I tried to swerve
Lover
#3, 2019
Swift bounced back from Reputation with the joyful and mature Lover. Swift describes it as a “love letter to love”, and it’s largely synth-pop with Jack Antonoff in the producer’s chair. The title track is a great torch song, while ‘Soon You’ll Get Better’ is a poignant return to country.
Favourite Song: ‘False God’
Hell is when I fight with you
But we can patch it up good
Make confessions and we’re begging for forgiveness
Got the wine for you
Red
#2, 2012
Before Red dropped, I was only aware of Swift as the teenage starlet who was interrupted by Kanye West at the VMAs. After Red she was inescapable, with hits like ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ and ’22’. But there was a very strong and wide ranging set of tracks to back up the hits – from the gentle country of ‘Begin Again’ and the epic balladry of ‘All Too Well’, to the reverb-laden, driving ‘State of Grace’ and the countrified stadium rock of the title track. The two duets are a mild blemish on an otherwise terrific album.
Favourite Song: ‘Red’
Losing him was blue like I’d never known
Missing him was dark gray all alone
Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met
But loving him was red
1989
#1, 2014
Red was a pop album, but featured plenty of guitars to provide continuity from Swift’s country records. 1989 takes its inspiration from the pop sounds of the year of Swift’s birth, all glossy synths and drum machines. It’s a great set of pop songs with most of the tracks sounding like potential radio hits – even bonus tracks like ‘New Romantics’ are indispensable.
Favourite Song: ‘Style’
You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye
And I got that red lip, classic thing that you like
Are you a fan of Swift’s work? Do you have a favourite song or album?
Aphoristical
Graham Fyfe is fascinated by pop music, and he may be the only blogger in the world to cover Neil Diamond and Ariana Grande.
No two ways about it 1989
Is a masterpiece of a record. It’s perfect
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I’m glad someone else is into her work – was worried it would fall on deaf ears.
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Totally gonna take your word on this one. I didn’t even know she has 6 albums.
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She’s had enough longevity to suggest that she’s a talented songwriter.
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Indeed! I just haven’t been paying any attention! 🙂
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I have both Red and 1989 and I’m of the opinion that 1989 is an exceptional album. Even though I’m not drawn at all to any of the other stuff, it’s clear she’s a fine songwriter. I honestly reckon she’s gonna hit the world with a great country album at some point – a Dolly or Loretta Lynn type.
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It would be nice to hear her do a country album with a bit of grit. The early country stuff’s so polished that it’s not what I’d normally listen to at all.
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I’m a sucker for some of the old stuff. Not all of it, right enough – some of it really does sound a bit slick, but Dolly has some great stuff, as does Loretta Lynn. Of course, mostly I dig Merle, George, and the outlaws (Willie, Cash, Kris, and Waylon). But yeah, some early country is exceptional before it became a Nashville pop machine.
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I’m mainly familiar with the Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris stuff when it comes to country. Need to spend more time with stuff like Merle and George.
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Gram and Emmylou are great – no doubt about it. There so much great stuff there, but there’s a lot of the older stuff that gets overlooked (I know cause I used to discard it) – Patsy Cline, Dolly and Kenny Rogers have a lot of great songs.
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Rogers and Partson seem mostly 1970s right? And Patsy Cline is a bit earlier.
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I guess the 70’s shaped them. Kenny’s best stuff is from the late 60’s (The First Edition stuff is somewhat more adventurous than his solo stuff – though his The Gambler is a good one). Patsy was a fair bit before that, yeah.
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I’ve never been much of a fan wondering how much of her popularity was (in part) based on her Barbie-doll looks. (But I suppose all entertainers trade on that.) But I’m always bugged when someone comes to my site with a closed mind. So I decided to give these a listen. And I must say while I’m not much of a country fan, I somewhat like the country stuff you’ve laid out here. I’m less enamored of the pop stuff. Too candy for me. That said, I know about the Ryan Adams cover and one night I’ll give ‘1989’ a spin.
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You do need a decent share of attractiveness to play the pop game – probably been that way ever since MTV. I was thinking about this recently as I’ve been working on a 2010s page – all the pop oriented acts I’ve covered – Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, Charli XCX, HAIM – are very attractive women. none of them are industry puppet type figures (not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that if the end product is good) – just makes you think about less attractive people who can’t play the pop game. I guess it’s less important in other genres so that’s where they end up.
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And I probably shouldn’t say this but boy is Taylor cute. Geez.
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More importantly, she just broke a career-long political silence, and came out as supporting the Democrat candidate.
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I don’t know how things are down there in ‘Lord of the Rings’ land, but here in the States, some artists are loathe to take any sort of political position for fear of (literally) alienating half their audience. So, good for her for finally taking a stand.
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Yes, definitely brave and will potentially cost her a lot of money.
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Maybe, maybe not. A lot of people don’t like Springsteen’s politics (leans left, doesn’t like Trump) but they go to his shows anyway. They love his music but hate when he talks politics. Which, in a four-hour show, he does sparingly.
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Most famous musicians are left wing, right? The right has Ted Nugent, Gene Simmons, and Kate Bush.
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Kate Bush? Say it ain’t so. Nugent is a flaming a-hole.
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I don’t know about the UK, but in New Zealand left and right are way less demarcated – both of the major parties are reasonably centrist, and we had a whole fascinating mess in the 1980s when the right wing prime minister almost bankrupted the country by overspending, then the left wing party instituted a bunch of extreme right wing financial policies that the country is still recovering from.
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We are more polarized = both people and party – than we have been since the ’60’s. It’s due largely to one man who likes it that way and promulgates it.
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There’s definitely seeds of discontent to exploit – globalisation and fast change has definitely created discontent. But it’s doesn’t feel like Trump’s going to solve anything for those people.3.
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I am a huge Swiftie and I always like to see unbiased people supporting Taylor and noticing that she really is talented! I see far too many people thinking she makes mindless music for young girls when she’s actually a fantastic lyricist and can tell an entire story in just a few lines.
In regards to your ranking of her albums, I personally would swap around Fearless and Speak Now but other than that I totally agree! I was also a little disappointed with reputation, especially since it followed such epic albums like Red and 1989. I’m intrigued to see what her 7th album will be like, and perhaps you will update your ranking when it is released?
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Hopefully this site will still be going then! I wouldn’t expect another record for a couple of years. It’d be interesting to see where she goes – she really hasn’t made the same album twice yet.
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I really like 1989, and the Ryan Adams version of the album is also pretty good!
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I listened to the Ryan Adams when it came out, while I was too snobby to admit to liking Swift, but I haven’t revisited it.
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