Album Ranking (Daniella’s Version)

Speaking my truth....

Jan 17, 2025

Now that the Eras Tour has ended and the Eras era is complete, I feel like I need to give this period of our lives one last tribute, and what better way to close this chapter of our lives if not to rank all of Taylor’s albums. This is probably going to be very very controversial, and many of you are going to disagree with me, but I think it’s time for me to expose my opinions.

11. Fearless (Taylor’s Version)

I’m sorry, but I never was and I will never be a Fearless stan. I think this album is iconic, and the original era is one of the best eras, but it’s just not for me. There are some great songs on the album such as The Way I Loved You, Mr. Perfectly Fine and White Horse, but there are also so many misses. There are 26 songs on the album (including 6 Vault Tracks and one song that was a single but not on the original album), and about ten of them aren’t necessary or great. I skip Superstar, I skip Come In With The Rain, I skip You All Over Me. So many songs on the album just feel like unfinished work that had been submitted too quickly, which overall makes sense - Taylor was seventeen and eighteen years old when she wrote this album. She didn’t have so much experience with cutting out songs and making albums, so I don’t blame her for having some skips on that one.

10. Lover

I know people are going to come out on me, but I am not a Lover enjoyer. I don’t hate the album, but I do think it’s one of Taylor’s worst albums. It was supposed to be her romantic-free album, where everything is so perfect, but in reality, it’s an album that perfectly showcases Taylor’s age crisis before she turned 30. This album is childish. Songs like ME!, I Forgot That You Existed and others are childish. The whole era was so childish. When Taylor first released the single cover for ME!, she had to clarify that the song was for her new album and not for The Secret Life Of Pets. Doesn’t that sound a little bit embarrassing to you? Having to go online and tell your fans that your song is not for a kids movie? It is embarrassing.

There are some great songs on Lover. Death By A Thousand Cuts, Cornelia Street and False God are some of my all-time favorites, and yet, I will never listen to Lover on shuffle. One time I made a terrible mistake and set ME! as my alarm. The moment at 6:05am, on a Wednesday morning, when I woke up to that JUMPSCARE, I understood that Lover wasn’t for me. It’s Taylor trying to be everything, and yet missing so hard.

9. Taylor Swift

Taylor’s debut album is an album I absolutely LOVE, however it’s still a country album written by a sixteen year old girl, which is not exactly my favorite thing in the world. I think Debut is great as a first album, and it’s so fun to hear her old country accent, but I believe that there are many albums that are better (which is natural, considering the fact Taylor only improved over the years). I do think that we need to give Mary’s Song a moment of appreciation because this song is an absolute gem and I adore it.

8. Red (Taylor’s Version)

Red is a blessing. Imagine waking up on a chilly morning and having a 30-track-long album to listen to on the bus ride to school. It’s the perfect mood and it’s honestly such a great album. Holy Ground, Everything Has Changed, All Too Well, State Of Grace and the list doesn’t end! I also think Red was such an important time in Taylor’s life. She wrote it while dealing with such great heartbreak, and it was the first album where I personally felt like she made me feel grief while listening to her songs. It was also the time when she started experimenting with pop music. When Red lost AOTY at the Grammys (which I think is a shame), Taylor made her official transfer to the pop genre and left her country roots behind.

7. Reputation

I truly believe that Reputation is the greatest comeback album that has ever been made. It’s everything to me: from the aesthetic to the single choice to the songs to the promo. I have nothing bad to say about this album, except that Delicate is a little bit overhyped. It’s the love album that Lover was aspiring to be. I honestly think that this album is full of such great production and songwriting. It’s the last album Taylor recorded under Big Machine Records, and it’s probably the most anticipated album in Swiftie history. I mean, you are unreal if you’ve never clowned for Rep TV. I know I have, and I am proud of it.

6. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)

Speak Now is THE Taylor Swift album, simply because she was the only songwriter on the album. It’s all hers, every single word and every single lyric is all hers, which makes it extremely personal and beautiful. Honestly, my favorite thing about Speak Now is that it’s the first sign we got that Taylor is actually one of the most brilliant songwriters of our century. With no help, a 19-year-old girl wrote Haunted, The Story Of Us, Never Grow Up, Last Kiss, Long Live… The list is never ending. It’s her fairytale album. An album about growing up and falling in love. And it’s all hers.

5. 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

I think we can all agree that 1989 is the greatest pop album that has ever been released. Like, ever. It has changed our perception of pop music and of the phenomenon called Taylor Swift. I used to have mixed feelings over the album, because liking it is ‘basic’, because liking Shake It Off is ‘basic’, but over the years I’ve grown to understand that it’s popular for a reason. It’s the definition of pop perfection. Out Of The Woods, You Are In Love, Blank Space, Wonderland, New Romantics, I Know Places, the entire Vault - every song of the album is so on point, catchy and incredible.

4. Evermore

Evermore is my comfort album, and what I believe to be the best Taylor Swift album lyric-wise. Every single song on this album is a literary masterpiece - from the iconic Champagne Problems to the criminally underrated gem Cowboy Like Me to my anthem Tolerate It. There are no misses on this album. When Taylor made Evermore, she created an album that you can both scream, cry and dance to. It’s an album that captures every single aspect of her life, and has a song for every situation, and even though Ms. Swift chooses to ignore its existence, it holds a special place in my heart.

3. Folklore

Folklore is the first Taylor Swift album I’ve ever fully listened to. As a young girl who only liked Ariana Grande’s old R&B music and Dua Lipa’s pop, I didn’t appreciate it. It was too calm for me, and since my English was much worse at the time, I didn’t actually understand the stories behind the album, and thought it was bad. But I was so wrong. Once I understood that alternative music is as good as pop music, I fell in love with Folklore, the album that I still have to sometimes translate. Hoax, Seven, Exile, Invisible String, This Is Me Trying and many more - all such great songs. They are my permanent study playlist, my alarm, my everyday playlist. There is nothing more calming than listening to this album, and I wish someday I would be able to listen to some of it live.

2. The Tortured Poets Department

I cherish TTPD so much. I remember when it first came out - from scream-crying when listening to The Alchemy, the ‘I WAS RIGHT!!!’ screams during loml, the screaming when we realized it was a Ratty Healy album and the sound that came out of my mouth when Taylor dropped The Anthology. Long story short, there were lots of screams, and I still smile thinking of that day. TTPD is an album that I play on repeat, and that I managed to listen to twice today (which is not a simple mission, considering the fact it’s two hours long). Songs like The Bolter, loml, Guilty As Sin?, But Daddy I Love Him and So High School are my everyday anthems, and I love them with all my whole heart.

1. Midnights

Midnights is my favorite Taylor Swift album, and it will be forever (or at least until Taylor drops an album full of cute Tayvis songs). When it came out, I was only starting to become a real hardcore Swiftie, and I remember living through the Midnights era and having the time of my life becoming more and more obsessed with Taylor and her music. Songs like Hits Different, The Great War, Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve and Labyrinth are some of my all-time favorite songs. This album is extremely close to my heart, because of the amount of memories I have from this era - the beginning of The Eras Tour, the music videos and of course: the moment I told my friend how much I love You’re Losing Me and wished Taylor would release it on Spotify, only for it to actually drop on streaming platforms five hours later.

I’m finally back posting after two weeks! I’ve been really busy with school and have been finding it difficult to write now that The Eras Tour is over, but I managed to type something out. I hope to start posting more frequently again when things calm down a little, but I’m glad I could publish something. Writing this was so much fun for me (even though I changed my ranking so many times), and I know it’s very controversial, but I stand with it. You are more than welcome to share your own ranking because I miss interacting with Swifties :)