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. I Knew You Were Trouble, with its swift-step breakdown, saw her signature sound infused with trendy dance production. Now, without further ado, here's EW's ranking of Taylor Swift's seminal albums. 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"). 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. October 26, 2022. Keefe, Swifts seventh album, Lover, lacks a unified sonic aesthetic, ostensibly from trying to be something to everyone. 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. But the true gems of this wildly successful 2021 re-recording (which topped every chart in sight across the globe) are undoubtedly "Love Story," which resurfaces here with heightened sensibilities and deeper convictions, along with several songs "From The Vault," most notably "Mr. Taylor herself referred to it as her "only true breakup album," and like her today, whatever heartache made us once cling to Red for the solace is (hopefully) behind us now. This time, she trades her upbeat synth-pop for overt trap tremors and heavy-handed hip-hop, like harsh emergency strobes disrupting a blacked-out cityscape. In honor of her instant-classic, record-breaking new LP. 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. Where Swift has re-recorded an album, we have included only the new, re-recorded version of the record in the ranking. In the 2017 article, Jenkins also noted that this album features hip-hop influences, something Swift hasn't really done before. Its a brilliantly honest moment, taken from Swifts most mature album yet. In a review for Rolling Stone, Claire Shaffer called the album "a refreshing change of pace.". "We Were Happy," Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021) There's a thin line between timeless and basic, and this "from the vault" track stays on the wrong side. 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). After embracing folk-flecked sounds on sister albums Folklore and Evermore, for Midnights Swift instead turns to bubbling synths and percussive beats, this sleek production run under the artists late night musings. But none before were so intricate and immersive as a whole fictional timeline pieced together from multiple angles in an album just over an hour long. 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. Listening to folklore then is like wiping the cuff of a cable knit on fogged glass to peer in on private moments. "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. Swift dropped a "special very chaotic surprise" in the form of seven bonus tracks. 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. Between those extremes is a reliable lineup of ultra-catchy mega-hits that infected the cultural consciousness through Top 40 countdowns and, later, TikTok videos. Released in 2014 and named after the year she was born, "1989" was inspired by the pop music of the mid-1980s. But just because Taylor took a sharp left turn doesn't mean she was unsuccessful. 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. First contact is a shock, a singe that lingers and radiates energy, next a scab, hardening as it heals, before calming into a scar you carry, listening to, forevermore. True, this album successfully acted as a reminder that Swift is a powerhouse musician who shouldnt be messed with. Would it be soft and sincere, like "New Year's Day," poppy and upbeat like "Wildest Dreams," or go back to Swift's acoustic roots with songs like "Untouchable"? 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. 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" 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. 40 "Should've Said No" Swift's uptempo. How often I find myself in the mood to listen to . 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. Her once apolitical music is, on Lover, peppered with references to Americas current state of affairs, both thinly veiled (Death by a Thousand Cuts) and more overt (You Need to Calm Down). 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. It's 1989's sonic spirit with more lyrical depth, dipping a brush in her newfound solipsism and painting musical murals of Taylor's "13 sleepless nights," scenes of "self-loathing, fantasizing about revenge, wondering what might have been, falling in love, and falling apart" construed in vivid detail. In the 16 years since the single Tim McGraw launched Swift to country stardom, shes jettisoned the genres ill-fitting signifiers and overcome the limitations of her early recordingsimprovements captured in her Taylors Version re-recordings as a powerful statement of artistic agency. Pick what song you like better in each battle to get an accurate list of your favourite songs. Painting the picture of an unravelling relationship, it gradually crescendos, climaxing in the gut-punch couplet of And you call me up again just to break me like a promise / So casually cruel in the name of being honest. "Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. Some songs lean more country ("Mean") whereas others hint at the musical experimentation that would follow in subsequent albums ("Enchanted," "Haunted"), and, yet, the album is a mix of styles that seamlessly blend together. 2023 Oscars predictions: See who will win at the 95th Academy Awards. Note: hitting 'no opinion' or 'I like both' frequently will negatively affect your results. When "Midnights" was first announced, Swift described it as "the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life" and invited fans to meet her at midnight the night the album dropped. 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). 1989 is a masterclass in how to make a timeless pop record. And though she does vary her phrasing in ways that attempt to mask her limited voice, Swift is still noticeably off-pitch at least once on every song on the album. A 20-year-old Taylor, mid-transition from childhood to adulthood, draws from that dizzying dysphoria and uses it to refine her already awe-inspired songwriting. "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. Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone writes that the album "most notably picks up where the pure pop triptych of '1989,' 'Reputation,' and 'Lover' left off, a dazzling bath of synths complementing lyrics caught between a love story and a revenge plot.". These are songs that beckon celebration, hands raised over heads in secular worship of a 20-something's innate need to romanticize their life visions of nice dresses and sunsets, the epicenter of the world awaiting your arrival, hope that your beauty and grace will never fade. If nothing else, the album proves shes unwilling to operate on anyones terms other than her own. So reads Taylor Swift's social media announcement that, just two months after gracing fans with her re-recording of Fearless, she was giving the same treatment to 2012's Red with all 30 songs originally intended for the record. ", Big Machine/Republic Records/Republic Records/Big Machine. That she employs her long-established songwriting tropes in novel ways is truly the most significant development here. Such contrast in tone and prophecy perfectly capture the beautiful whiplash strewn throughout the album as she walks us through the stages of moving on: willing them to stay ("Treacherous"), drinking with friends to forget ("22"), ending the reconciliation cycle ("We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"), and starting anew with the next beau ("Begin Again"). I'm not using the 5-tier-ranking-scale or whatever because if I did literally half of the list would be a 5/5 yeah music is pretty good rn. 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. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past." Where Reputation before it was a risky, abrasive side-step shrouded in a smoky eye, Lover's follow up is a blushing cheek beaming with rosy retrospection and hopes for the future. 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. "'Fearless' may have established her as a capable teenage singer-songwriter, but 'Red' is the album that solidified her confidence, sexuality, and identity as a bonafide force to be reckoned with," English wrote. All of Swift's signature elements are present on Swift's third studio album that was released in 2010 beautifully honest lyrics about heartbreak ("Dear John," "Last Kiss"), biting diss tracks ("Mean," "Better Than Revenge"), and a story that unfolds ("Mine"). 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. Theres a free-wheeling, carefree attitude to the collection. From Austin Butler and Cate Blanchett to a potential Best Supporting Actress toss-up, see who EW thinks will win at the 2023 Oscars. ", Released in 2019 and named after one of the album's singles, "Lover" introduced a new era for Swift one that seemingly had elements of many of her past works, like "1989" and "Speak Now.". You could have at least changed RED/FEARLESS to Taylors version. It also boasts some of Swifts best ever lyricism for example its title track, where Swift vividly describes the wedding of an ex-lover: I sneak in and see your friends / And her snotty little family, all dressed in pastel / And she is yelling at a bridesmaid / Somewhere back inside a room / Wearing a gown shaped like a pastry. 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