says the actress. Your email address will not be published. The album has been described as escapist, cottagecore-inspired, and was written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. The catalyst was lead single "Tim McGraw," but this ticket to the country radio airwaves turned out to be a red herring with the advent of other ironclad, infinitely repeatable songs that remain fan favorites, even in lieu of our now excess of options. The best All Taylor Swift Songs (including Midnights) rankings are on the top of the list and the worst rankings are on the bottom. Taylor Swift Drops Trippy Lavender Haze Music Video, Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoffs 20 Best Collaborations. But none are more affecting than "champagne problems," a first-person post-mortem after rejecting a marriage proposal a classic "it's not you, it's me" scenario with simple piano chords accompanying the guilt of walking away and the peril of being mentally unwell ("'She would've made such a lovely bride' / 'What a shame she's fked in the head,' they said"). 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. Fearless in its original 2008 form was adolescent in every way: a gentle voice singing fantasies of Juliet finding her Romeo, a boy on a white horse beckoning his hardened princess. Welcome to the Quantum Realm. After a fiery Twitter storm courtesy of Kanye (though it was far from their first feud), Taylor finally sheds her decade-old, good girl persona for the villain alter-ego curated by the media, opting to settle the score through what she does best: traversing new sonic territory. Annie Galvin, Evermore is at once as confident and complete a statement as Folklore. Swifts seventh ignores the bombastic electro-pop of its predecessor, and instead embraces the sleek stylings of 1989. Swifts surprise eighth album arrived with very little fanfare. If you have a hard time taking a side, you can either click "I Like Both" or "No Opinion," though the catch is that the process might take longer. The title track, whose lilting rhythm and reverb-soaked drums and vocals are reminiscent of Mazzy Stars 90s gem Fade Into You, and the acoustic Soon Youll Get Better, a tribute to Swifts mother, hark back to the singers pre-pop days, while I Think He Knows and False God evoke Carly Rae Jepsens brand of 80s R&B-inflected electro-pop. 'Red' is filled with top notch tunes: the brilliantly snarky 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' (Swift's first ever Billboard 100 Number One) and fizzing '22' are stone-cold smashers. The brooding production glitches and glitters, embracing the indietronica thats permeated the last few The National records. The tongue-in-cheek I Forgot That You Existed is a strutting reminder of Swifts skills as a lyricist. She colors its lyrics and soundscapes between the clear cut, ear candy lines a hint of bubblegum pop, a dash of animated movie-anthem flair (it's a miracle that "ME!" 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. Though the album is gorgeously hooky as a whole, and overall perfect for belting in the car for a pick-me-up, it's not hard to imagine Katy Perry or even Demi Lavato as a stand-in singer for the LP's lowest moments. 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"). Taylor Swift surprise-released her eighth album "Folklore" on July 24, 2020. 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. It's the stuff of shared languages, not unlike our own pensive journal entries when we had nowhere else to turn but the page. He also noted that this album began to show just how developed Swift's "potential for fury" was and he's right "Picture To Burn" is sassy and confidently filled with anger: "So watch me strike a match on all my wasted time / As far as I'm concerned you're just another picture to burn.". Overall, the beauty of revisiting Red is that many of us, at points high and low, have related to its caustic, dizzying array of emotion, tracing the nonlinear trajectory of falling in love, breaking your heart, and putting it back together again. It has a piano introduction reminiscent of "New Year's Day," a song about an enduring love. Its fantasias are more melancholic, its themes of longing more resentful. "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. Swift released "Reputation" in 2017, three years after "1989," a noticeable gap as she'd previously been debuting albums every two years. As ever, Swift deftly pivots from upbeat tracks to sad ballads with devastating bridges that make you want to cry your eyes out. Jonathan Keefe. But Midnights and its seven "3am" bonus tracks are still steeped in singularity, mostly due to its ultra-honest subject matter and intriguing concept parsed out with Taylor's expert execution. Like the "Taylor's Version" before it, 2021's rendition of Red lassos fans' near-decade old affection and nostalgia for the songs and herds them into an encore of adoration. First emerging as a country-crossover artist, shes since embraced glossy pure pop and indie-folk; but while her sound may have changed, Swifts brilliantly honest lyricism and songwriting talent has remained a keystone in her tunes. It won a mantelpiece of awards including the Grammy for Album of the Year but perhaps even more impressive is the fact its already left a massive impact, a mere six years after it was released. In her defense, no creative mind can be consistently remarkable, not even one as decorated and revered as Taylor Swift. Standouts tracks on this album also include "Fearless," an easy listen that captures the sweet feelings surrounding new romances; "Fifteen," a young love story that unfolds over several verses; "White Horse," a slow tune featuring lyrics about heartbreak that cut deep; "Love Story," a romantic tale with a fairytale edge; and "The Best Day," an emotional song that is filled with sweet childhood memories. Drag and drop items from the bottom and put them on your desired tier. In the song, she celebrates a level of stardom that she'd continue to exponentially build upon in the years to come: "And bring on all the pretenders / One day, we will be remembered. But while her grasp of song structure at this point in her career suggested an innate talent for how to develop a melody, Fearless also highlights Swifts then-limited repertoire and lack of creativity in constructing her narratives of doe-eyed infatuations and first loves gone wrong. Too many of us have felt like the monster on the hill encroaching on a peaceful city, the devastated partygoer in the blood-soaked gown, the midnight raining on a kindred spirit's sunlight, the lovesick loner lost in a labyrinth of their own making. 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. and Bleachers fame), who employs an undercurrent of drums that boom like palms on metal doors and vocals that echo as if off skyscrapers. Rosen is right this album combines intimate lyrics and incredibly catchy tunes and it is showcased in Swift's hit single "You Belong With Me," an upbeat anthem for those dealing with unrequited love. Listening to folklore then is like wiping the cuff of a cable knit on fogged glass to peer in on private moments. She draws from her accumulated life experience and musical insight to connect with her younger self, refining her past homages to youth with matured, knowing vocals (dropping her country inflection for a more rounded singsong). Filled with rootin tootin tunes like Tim McGraw, Our Song and Teardrops on My Guitar (largely considered Swifts breakout song) that stormed the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, it earned a teenage Taylor support slots on tour with Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts and Faith Hill. Though she was praised for her songwriting right out of the gate, what Swifts self-titled debut truly shows in hindsight is how diligently shes worked to hone her craft over the years. By album three Swift was a certified Big Deal. Insider's music team revisited the album and ranked all 17 of its deluxe-edition songs. Another remote collaboration composed in secret, evermore is a sort of epilogue to the backwoods mythos and backdoor relationships on folklore, delving into new character studies with a familiar, folk-infused air of coulds, woulds, and shoulds. Ranking all 129 of Taylor Swift's songs (from "Tim McGraw" to the 'Reputation' era, Rob Sheffield writes, "the weirdest and most fascinating thing about Taylor Swift will always . 175. Written in her freshman year of high school, it positioned her as a country-crossover hopeful ready for mainstream success. 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"? So while it's vehemently impressive that an adolescent was the creative force behind the best tracks on a seven-time platinum record, it doesn't change the fact that it's far from her best work, and mostly made of songs that slip through her legacy's cracks more than any other album. 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. 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 euphoric Mastermind takes it one step further, where on it Swift admits: No one wanted to play with me as a little kid/So Ive been scheming like a criminal ever since/To make them love me and make it seem effortless/This is the first time Ive felt the need to confess. But "Folklore" has a laid-back vibe that reflects the spontaneity of how this album was created. 1989. rep. Red. 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. 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. There's no question her most recent two albums are related, as "Evermore" has a similar sound and features nods to "Folklore. "Speak Now" comes in at no. These tales spin out like spools of fine gold, delicate in their delivery, eschewing catchy hooks to instead relish in simplicity. All of Taylor Swift's Albums in order + Some unreleased, bonus, and soundtrack songs (only ones that are in a mostly complete state) in table form A mean/mode score calculator under each album Page 2 A macro-enabled automatic ranking table of each album's mean score, with colours that re-orders automatically as you score the songs on Page 1 Page 3 Fearless. Other notable tracks include "Illicit Affairs," "Invisible String," and "Betty.". I also factored in critic reviews of the albums when deciding on the final ranking. Yet between its plot-point breadcrumbs is an inherent relatability embedded in Taylor's never-better introspection. Cinquemani, Swifts 1989 severed whatever vestiges of her country roots remained on 2012s Red, replacing acoustic guitars and pedal steel with multi-layered synthscapes, drum machines, and densely packed vocal tracking. There are whispers of reputation as well on opener "Lavender Haze," "Midnight Rain," and b-side "Vigilante Sh-t," which are menacing in their side-eyed electro hip hop shades but with a more relaxed delivery, swapping her sixth album's shock value for more earnest meditations on conflict born out of your own misgivings. 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. 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. The songs are as fresh as they were when first released in 2014 with the choruses still getting embedded in your head. In the 2017 article, Jenkins also noted that this album features hip-hop influences, something Swift hasn't really done before. This new sound may not be a far cry from the original, but to the trained Swiftie's ear, these small changes culminate into a noticeably "richer" listening experience from all angles. But back to the music. In a review for Rolling Stone, Claire Shaffer called the album "a refreshing change of pace.". And as critic Chris Willman wrote for The Hollywood Reporter in 2010, "Speak Now" saw Swift's music style mature while still keeping elements of her youth that her fans so adored in her previous two albums. Keefe, Nearly every track on Swifts sophomore effort, Fearless, builds to a massive pop hook. There are, of course, a handful of golden tunes (Dancing with Our Hands Tied, Call It What You Want, Delicate). But its All Too Well thats the finest moment on Red, and possibly the greatest song Swift has ever written. Her narrators often seem to lack insight because Swift writes with the point of view that hers is the only story to be told, which makes songs like Dear John and Better Than Revenge come across as shallow and shortsighted. Her self-titled debut stood as her lone and tall titan at the time of its 2006 release, which was immediately met with commercial and critical success, catapulting a then-16-year-old Swift to stardom almost overnight. 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). He's right "Folklore" further cements the fact that Swift is in a league all her own and cannot be placed in a stylistic box when it comes to her music. Then is like wiping the cuff of a cable knit on fogged glass to peer in on private moments,. 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