Ranking All of Taylor Swift's Albums

by Tyler Glover
In 2007, I had fallen in love with one of my best friends. I had never met someone who I felt I was more compatible with and I felt like we should give a relationship a shot. I finally worked up the courage to share my feelings with her. It led to a conversation about how she did not want a relationship because she valued our friendship too much. I was absolutely heartbroken. I got into my car driving home devastated. I turn on the radio and hear the lyrics, “He’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.” I immediately began crying listening to this song because it completely described the situation I was going through. When I got home, I looked up the song and saw that it was by an artist I had never heard of named Taylor Swift. The next day, I went to the store and bought her debut album. As I listened, I heard her describe so many experiences that I had gone through in the last several years of my life. I immediately became a Swiftie and looked forward to any album that she would ever put out.

The incomparable Taylor Swift would continue to deliver and surpass expectations for many years and is continuing to do so. I found the words to my enemies in “Mean,” the words to describe the love for my wife in “You Belong With Me,” the delight in shaking off the haters in “Shake It Off,” and songs that describe many of my exes in “I Knew You Were Trouble.” Swift has written these songs about her life experiences but managed to give a voice to a generation in helping them validate their experiences. Yes, I have gone through this and this is how I felt about it. Swift has declined to ever publicly voice who her songs are about in part because she wants her fans to let the songs represent the people this relates to in their own lives. By keeping it confidential, we don’t think of Gyllenhaal, Styles, Jonas, Mayer, or Kennedy, it represents John Doe or Jane Doe.

As Taylor has released her nine albums over the years, she has ushered in new eras: each with their own look, sound and genre. Swift has journeyed from country to pop to indie folk with even some rock influences in her work. Trying to rank her albums is almost near impossible because they are all so different and each have something that makes them special. Even what might be last on my list in ranking her albums is still better than a ton of music out there. Keeping that in mind, here is how this Swiftie ranks her nine albums, thus far:

9. “Taylor Swift” debut album (2006)

Photo: Big Machine Records

Swift’s debut was a solid first album from an up-and-coming country artist. It managed to successfully establish what kind of artist she was going to be. She was going to write her own songs about her experiences with life, love, heartache, anger, happiness and joy. This album has some amazing songs that I continue to go back to often even after 15 years and eight more albums: “Our Song,” “Teardrops On My Guitar,” “Tim McGraw,” and “Should’ve Said No.” After the release of this album, Swift was nominated for the Grammy for Best New Artist and won the Horizon Award at the 2007 Country Music Association Awards. This album was also nominated for Album of the Year at the 2008 Academy of Country Music Awards. Swift made a huge impact on the country music scene almost instantaneously with the release of this album. Little did we all know, this was just the tip of the iceberg to how brilliant of an artist Swift would eventually become. 

8. “reputation” (2017)

Photo: Big Machine Records

The fact that “reputation” could be placed at number eight on this list just shows how insanely talented Swift truly is. This album’s themes of having people turn their back on you but finding someone special who loves you despite your reputation truly speaks to me. This album came after Kim Kardashian leaked a PARTIAL clip of a phone call that seemingly “proved” Swift had lied about giving Kanye West permission to write a song that she had denounced. Swift had spoken out against him during a Grammy speech and when this clip got released, Swift truly believed she would be canceled especially since there was a trending hashtag at the time to make her believe this was the case. During this time, Swift met her boyfriend Joe Alwyn and this album details her emotions going through the fallout but also falling in love with Joe, who didn’t care about others’ opinions about her. This is my go-to album when I am dealing with depression, anger, or wanting to feel free from what others think about me. The highlights on this album are: “Getaway Car,” “Delicate,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” “King of My Heart,” and “New Year’s Day.” My favorite lyric from this album is: “My reputations’ never been worse so you must like me for me.”


7. “Lover” (2019)

Photo: Republic Records

Taylor’s seventh album was a return to the “Daylight” after the dark album, reputation. This album truly celebrates love in all its forms and complexities. She explores the love for parents in “Soon You’ll Get Better,” love for our significant others in “Lover,” love for our friends in “It’s Nice To Have A Friend,” a love for ourselves in “ME!,” and wrote an anthem that combines several of these in “You Need To Calm Down.” This album has so many fantastic songs. One of the highlights is “The Man.” In this song, Swift examines how her career would be different if she did everything the exact same way but was a MAN. This album would go on to be nominated for three Grammys, including Song of The Year for “Lover.” While this album isn’t the best work she has ever done, it showcased many of the reasons we all “Love-her.”

6. “Speak Now” (2010)

Photo: Big Machine Records

Swift’s third album was her first and only album thus far that is completely and entirely written only by her. This could be the reason some of the best lyrics from her entire career are on this album. The album is inspired by the notion that we all have things we hold back and don’t say but Swift is encouraging us all to “Speak Now.” The song the album is named after tells the story of a girl who goes to a wedding to interrupt it and tell the groom that she has feelings for him. The whole album encourages us to say how we are feeling just in less grandiose forms. This album has so many great songs: an annual fourth of July song for my family: “Sparks Fly,” “Back to December,” the first time Taylor Swift openly admits the ending of a relationship is her fault, “Dear John,” a song sang so beautifully that calls an ex out, and “Mean,” a song which won Swift two Grammys! Speak Now is also really special to me because this was the tour that I saw Swift for the first time. When she came into the audience, we had floor seats and my wife even got to hug her before the security ushered her towards the stage. This is a very empowering album that still means so much to me even a decade later.

5. evermore (2020)

Photo: Republic Records

When the news first broke that Swift was releasing a sister album to the critically acclaimed and beloved folklore, I was excited but also a little worried. I was worried these were the songs not chosen to be on folklore and would not be as great in quality. I could not have been more wrong. evermore continues the brilliant storytelling that folklore starts by telling us stories from multiple intriguing and complex points of view. We get to hear from a con artist in love (“cowboy like me”), someone wanting to reunite with an ex for the holidays (“‘tis the damn season”), a woman in a forbidden romance (“ivy”), a friend who kills her friend’s husband after she goes missing (“no body, no crime”), and from a woman in a loveless marriage (“tolerate it”). This album is almost certain to get several Grammy nominations when the nominations are released in a week. This album showed us that while we thought folklore was complete, we still had some captivating stories to hear on this sister album.

4. “Fearless” (2008) and re-recorded (2021)

Photo: Big Machine Records

With Fearless, Swift became the youngest winner ever of the Grammy for Album of the Year. This was a record she would hold up until two years ago when Billie Eilish broke it. This album had the widely successful singles: “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me,” which would solidify her as a dominating country artist with possible pop crossover potential. Fearless would not only be the Album of the Year at the Grammys but also at the Academy of Country Music Awards and at the Country Music Association Awards. Fearless was already an incredible success in Swift’s career but when she re-released her album this year including some previously unreleased tracks, the album would become even better. With the inclusion of “You All Over Me,” “Don’t You,” and “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” in particular, this album soars to new heights!

3. “Red” (2012) and re-recorded (2021)

Photo: Big Machine Records

Swift’s fourth album introduced us to a whole new Taylor. With Red, Taylor really started to experiment with her music. With the help of producer Max Martin, her career started to embrace the country-pop genre and seemed to be following the trajectory of Shania Twain’s career. Red would give Swift her first No. 1 Billboard Hit: “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” It would also feature many incredible songs, such as “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “22,” “Begin Again,” and features the BEST song of Swift’s entire career: “All Too Well.” When Swift re-released this album last week, she included the original 10-minute version of this song fans had known about for years and were eager to one day hear. Swift released it as one of the vault tracks and made a song that was already brilliant to something nothing short of a masterpiece. This song became a self-proclaimed Swiftie favorite despite never being released as a single. Swift has said she realized how popular this song was with fans when playing it at one of her concerts and realizing how fans were shouting the lyrics in a way she did not expect. This song examines how sometimes we do not know how to feel after a breakup but we do remember it … all too well. Swift has always said she wants her music to sound like how she feels and this one successfully does that. The first five minutes, we feel a state of numbness as she remembers, then anger as she explores her feelings, and then to a state of sadness as she asks if he remembers it all too well the way she does. Red was a fantastic album that explored the many aspects of love and how red can symbolize anger, love and just all the emotions surrounding those. Red would be nominated for four Grammys including Album of the Year. This album is the only time she lost so far when nominated and with the re-release she is showing the Grammys they made a mistake.

2. folklore (2020) 

Photo: Republic Records

With this album, Swift became the first woman to win the Grammy for Album of the Year three times, following her wins for Fearless and 1989. It is no surprise because this album showed us that Swift could not only do country and pop but also indie-folk music. This album’s best songs are the ones that tell the love triangle story of Betty, James and “Augustine” in “betty,” “cardigan” and “august.” James is in love with Betty but after a falling out, he has a summer fling with Augustine but eventually reunites with Betty. The admirable part of the song “august” is that we see how complex Augustine’s feelings for James were and that for her, this wasn’t a summer fling instead of painting her as the villainous other woman. One of my personal favorites that is criminally underrated is “this is me trying.” In her film, “folklore: the long pond sessions,” (available on Disney+), she explains that sometimes, people are trying their best but not getting credit for it. Some people need that validation that people acknowledge they are doing their best and they don’t always get it. It is so difficult for me to pick between the correct order for the top three because folklore really showcases Swift’s songwriting capabilities at its best. However, the top choice I feel is the correct one.

1. “1989” (2014) 

Photo: Big Machine Records

With the release of 1989, Swift proclaimed her transition from country to pop music. Inspired by 1980s’ synth-pop, Taylor named the album after the year she was born to signify a “re-birth” to her career. This album would go on to win three Grammys, including her second win for Album of the Year. It would be a blockbuster commercial and critical success! It would go on to have three Billboard No. 1 songs: “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space” and “Bad Blood.” With this album, Swift was everywhere! To me, it was the peak of her career. However, she would go on to show that you can have more than one peak. A really underrated song on this album that I listen to very regularly even today is “Clean.” This song compares love to like an addiction that she is trying to shake. It deals with the different emotions involved in that as well. You even miss it sometimes even knowing it is bad for you. This album showcases everything we love about Taylor perfectly: incredible storytelling, marvelous lyrics, infectious tunes, bops and heartbreaking songs. This is the album that a lot of my friends became Swifties on. There are 1,989 reasons to love this album and that is why in my opinion, it is her No. 1 album!