Whether it's a song about an ex or someone else who wronged her, Swift's clever, catchy "revenge tracks" have only continued to improve from here. 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. 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. What follows is a collection of stone-cold glimpses into the ripple effect discontentment has on relationships: the sadness of a seasonal lover, affection and effort met with indifference, infidelity ending in death. 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"). Some stories are symphonic semi-pop anthems ("Enchanted," "Haunted"), while others are country ballads dressed with electric guitars, as seen in "Dear John"'s interrogation of a 32-year-old lover's sway on a still-teen girl ("Don't you think 19's too young to be played by your dark, twisted games?"). When you pose the question of why Taylor Swift is among the most distinguished artists in popular music, the strength of her narrative songwriting is among the best answers. 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. Report RESET RANKING RESET TEMPLATE SAVE/DOWNLOAD TIER LIST Template by lucy But past skeptics be damned, the album has stood the test of time, with many now backpedaling their initial criticisms to revel in her unabashed outbursts of rage and ecstasy and its thematic anchor of tender love and care. 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. Keefe, In the run-up to the release of her sixth album, Reputation, Swift was excoriated by fans and foes alike for too often playing the victim. Pam Grier reflects on her most iconic roles, from, now backpedaling their initial criticisms, unrequited love looming on the high school bleachers, Professor of Commercial Music explains to EW, reclaiming the masters of her life's work, New Reputation: Taylor Swift shares intel on TS7, fan theories, and her next era, The best song from every Taylor Swift album. Its a brilliantly honest moment, taken from Swifts most mature album yet. Swift shines brightest on these songs, building and developing her story out of economic but evocative turns of phrase.". "Fearless" outranks "Taylor Swift" as it has more standout songs and has a cohesive sound that distinctly country-pop. Its fantasias are more melancholic, its themes of longing more resentful. I'll admit it took me a second to warm up to "Folklore" and realize how sophisticated and masterful it was so much so that it jumped from second-to-last to second place since this ranking was last updated. 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. Marjorie is a tear-jerking tribute to her late grandmother and Justin Vernon-duet Evermore is a euphoric beacon of hope that feels especially poignant at the end of 2020. In the 2017 article, Jenkins also noted that this album features hip-hop influences, something Swift hasn't really done before. Annie Galvin, Evermore is at once as confident and complete a statement as Folklore. The definitive ranking of Taylor Swift's 'Folklore' songs. The albums lyrics only serve to bolster that perception: Swift comes off like a frazzled stay-at-home mom scolding her disobedient children on Look What You Made Me Do and This Is Why We Cant Have Nice Things. But its her willingness to portray herself not as a victim, but the villain of her own story that makes Reputation such a fascinatingly thorny glimpse inside the mind of pops reigning princess. Taylor Swift's Track 5s, Ranked 9. Although there are standout individual songs on the album, "Taylor Swift" isn't particularly cohesive and now that her discography has been built up, it's hard to rank this high when listeners now know exactly what she's capable of. But herein lies the merit of Speak Now. Ten albums, a mantelpiece of awards and over a decade later, Swift has become one of the biggest popstars on the planet. Speak Now. Paul Attard, Considering that Swifts previous material was almost always better when she tossed the ill-fitting country signifiers and focused on her uncanny gift for writing pop hooks, Red was a smart, if overdue, move for the singer. She may be on the outs, but she sure isn't alone. The brooding production glitches and glitters, embracing the indietronica thats permeated the last few The National records. 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. But folklore is more a shuffled series of vignettes than a throughlined story, planting the lyrics with easter eggs recurring motifs (a favorite cardigan), places (cobblestone paths), and events (pulling up in a car, professing love on the porch) to offer conflicting perspectives of a love long ago lost. Rather, their relative simplicity only adds to Fearless' charm, bridging the old with the new a woman's voice singing a girl's anthems to make a once good album now great. Her door to escapism opened for lonesome, fractured listeners everywhere, who dove headfirst into the cottagecore sound grove, and relished in Swift's unexpected pivot towards barer-boned, folk-styled songwriting with electro-adjacent undertones whispered throughout. 1989. rep. Red. Lover is a backtrack in a way. 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. 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. "Picture To Burn" is a scorned teen's "Before He Cheats" swapping shooting whiskey for rumor mills with a grown woman's wit and a veteran songwriter's aptitude. 1989 signifies a rebirth of sorts for Taylor, not just because it's named after her actual birth year, but more due to its status as her first seismic genre shift. And, yes, her songwriting here is not quite fully actualized (as hindsight allows us to see now), but that doesn't diminish these songs' lasting splendor. Though she only first arrived onto (and soon conquered) the popular music scene 16 years ago, the breadth and depth of her work seems more the stuff of a lifelong evolution, spanning multiple genres and breaking industry records almost every time around. The spectacular The Last Great American Dynasty describes the life of American artist Rebekah Harkness (whose Rhode Island house Swift bought in 2013) with vivid descriptive lyrics. Although she claims the old Taylor is dead in the lyrics of "Look What You Made Me Do," we see touches of her "old self" in the softer chorus of otherwise intense "Ready For It?" In an album review for Variety, critic Chris Willman wrote, "For some fans, it might take a couple of spins around the block with this very different model to become re-accustomed to how there's still the same power under the hood here. Shes doing exactly what shes always done: offering a collection of incisive, often provocative songs that incorporate authentic, first-person details and leaving others to argue over specific genre signifiers. Taylor Swift started off as a country artist at a time when the genre was both less respectful and accommodating of the voices of women than at any other point in its storied history. "Her music mixes an almost impersonal professionalism it's so rigorously crafted it sounds like it has been scientifically engineered in a hit factory with confessions that are squirmingly intimate and true," wrote critic Jody Rosen for Rolling Stone in 2008. The album's opening, "Ready For It?," is an aptly-titled shockwave to the system compared to her previous work, abandoning instrumental lead-ins for a feel-it-in-your-bones bass machine accelerating into a rap? Perhaps even more impressive is Swifts mastery of song structure. " Bad Blood . For the album ranking, I considered a few factors including cohesiveness, listening experience, the number and quality of standout songs, and if the album is musically interesting or lyrically special. Note: If you make a mistake DO NOT click backspace unless you find extremely necessary. Keefe. 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. folklore. and Bleachers fame), who employs an undercurrent of drums that boom like palms on metal doors and vocals that echo as if off skyscrapers. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver's defeated drawl) borrows similarly spacious minor keys with ten times the heartbreak. This time, "All Too Well" retires a full band backing for hazy synths, but it's anything but smoke and mirrors. It's Taylor's first autobiographical album in three years, after an incredible pivot to fiction in folklore and evermore followed by re-recording Fearless and Red (with the latter three all dropping in 11 months' time). She later builds upon this skill with an added emphasis on production and atmosphere, landing victorious (almost) every time. It's humbling to hear a decades-defining artist at the absolute top of her career sing confessionals about self-loathing ("I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror") and toxic longing ("I hosted parties and starved my body / Like I'd be saved with a perfect kiss") with less inhibition than ever before. 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"). Love for a song about the worst parts of yourself grows on your heart like a burn on the skin. This only further proves that "Reputation" is a prime example that Swift can experiment with a variety of genres and still create magic. Also noted that this album features hip-hop influences, something Swift has n't really before. Your heart like a burn on the skin hip-hop influences, something Swift has n't really done.! 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