By: Schona Dhawan '25
Taylor Swift, the 21st century’s pop culture icon, has captured our collective imagination. Millions of Swifties have lived through all of her ten albums, also known as her “Eras.” Each album is unique to its theme, genre of music, and aesthetic or color scheme. For example, Folklore is an album that tells listeners stories in third-person viewpoints through the infamous love triangle and other songs, such as “The Last Great American Dynasty.” While Swifties can sing along to every word in all ten albums, there’s certainly a best and worst.
This ranking was based on placing individual songs on each album into 4 categories: great, good, elevator music, and skip. Depending on the category, each song was given an amount of points and each album was scored out of 10, accounting for the fact that certain albums have more or fewer songs than others.
10. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) - 7.3/10
Originally released in 2008, then 2021 for Taylor’s Version, Fearless is a very well-known album. Even though the 2nd Taylor Swift album includes hits like “Fearless,” “Love Story,” and “You Belong with Me”, a majority of the songs aren’t memorable or leave an impression musically or lyrically. If I were to listen to the album as a whole, I’d probably end up with a headache after the 1 hour and 47 minutes of elevator music.
Favorites: “Come in with the Rain,”” The Other Side of the Door”
Least Favorites: “Change,” “We Were Happy”
9. Midnights - 7.7/10
Taylor Swift’s most recent album has some popular songs that clearly indicate she stepped out of her comfort zone. The 3am tracks, or the bonus songs, were the only things that saved the album. The original 13 songs barely have a sense of theme and don’t represent a new “era” of Taylor. If I could describe this album in one word, it would be robotic. The music is classified as pop, but it barely sounds like the Taylor Swift we have heard from in her previous pop albums.
Favorites: “Sweet Nothing,” “Labyrinth”
Least Favorites: “Dear Reader,” “Anti-Hero”
8. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) - 8.1/10
Known as the second most popular album, she includes a list of songs that are impossible not to sing along to. Lyrically, the album connects with so many Swifties while also providing upbeat pop songs that are worth remembering. However, the album also can have a softer side of it when played acoustically, as I witnessed on MetLife Night 3 when Taylor played “Welcome to New York” and “Clean.” Personally, I don’t agree with where this album is ranked based on individual songs, but I can say that I am not a fan of the re-recorded versions of some songs (“New Romantics”)!
Favorites: “Clean,” “Is It Over Now?”
Least Favorites: “This Love,” “Shake It Off”
7. Evermore - 8.3/10
One of her more recent albums, Evermore is mostly a different genre from her other albums with the exception of Folklore. The album contains numerous songs of different themes or moods, but a number of the songs blend together as background music.
Favorites: “Tolerate It,” “Coney Island”
Least Favorites: “Happiness,” “Ivy”
6. Self-Titled (Debut) - 8.5/10
Taylor’s first album is commonly underrated, mostly due to the genre. The country album contains some of the first songs she wrote and has upbeat and extremely memorable tunes. However, about half of the album isn’t as memorable as other songs due to the mediocre lyrics or repetitive themes.
Favorites: “Teardrops On My Guitar,” “Cold As You”
Least Favorites: “Invisible,” “A Perfectly Good Heart”
5. Reputation - 8.7/10
Reputation, Taylor’s comeback album after her hiatus gives us a style of her that we’ve never seen before. Especially shown in “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” she makes comments on the way the media has treated her over the span of her career. Rep is a truly iconic album because it includes upbeat pop songs, like “I Did Something Bad,” as well as softer romantic songs towards the end of the album, like "Call It What You Want.”.
Favorites: “New Year’s Day,” “…Ready For It?”
Least Favorite: “Look What You Made Me Do”
4. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) - 8.8/10
My personal favorite, and Taylor Swift’s 3rd album, is composed of upbeat and softer pop songs. Even without the phenomenal vault tracks, the album could be listened to for hours on end. Speak Now gives us love, heartbreak, tragedy, nostalgia, and (better than) revenge all in 22 songs.
Favorites: “Dear John,” “The Story of Us”
Least Favorite: None!
3. Lover - 9.0./10
This album, which Taylor Swift wrote centered around love, is worth screaming to. The aesthetic shown through the lyrics touches the hearts of nearly every Swiftie.
Favorites: “Death By A Thousand Cuts,” “Afterglow”
Least Favorites: “All of the Girls You’ve Loved Before”
2. Red (Taylor’s Version) - 9.5/10
Red, which has won over the hearts of many Swifties, contains 30 extraordinary tracks. Despite it being one of her first albums, it contains some of the best songs she has written, including the popular song “All Too Well (10 Minute Version).” My dad once asked me, “If you were stranded on an island and you could listen to only one album, what would it be?” While Red may not be my number one album, it contains every emotion or type of song you could want to listen to.
Favorites: “I Bet You Think About Me,” “Run”
Least Favorites: “Stay, Stay, Stay,” “I Almost Do”
1. Folklore - 10/10
Finally, a no skip album, the indie album Folklore includes tracks you could sing over and over. Taylor Swift wrote the majority of the songs based on fictional characters, except for “Rebecca,” who made the album noteworthy. The lyrics touch millions of Swifties’ hearts through the different emotions displayed in “This Is Me Trying” or “My Tears Ricochet.”
Favorites: “Seven,” “Hoax”
Least Favorite: None!
So, after ranking each individual song that corresponds with an album ranking, I don’t agree with the numbers. I would much rather rank the album as a whole based on my opinion, and not a point system. Here’s how I would normally rank the albums from worst to best: Fearless, Midnights, Evermore, Self-Titled, Lover, 1989, Reputation, Folklore, Red, and Speak Now. In conclusion, my personal opinion of the ranking of Taylor’s individual songs is completely different to the ranking of her 10 albums.
Sources: YouGov Taylor Swift Image 1: Official Taylor Swift Eras Promotional Material
Image 2: John Shearer/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
Edited by: Imogen Miller '26, Katarina Radulovic '24 and Ms. Brilliant.
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