Taylor Swift Essentials

The country world feigned surprise when, after three albums of Music Row-indebted songcraft, Taylor Swift formally embraced pop on 2012’s Red, home to “All Too Well” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. But no one should have been shocked: Any 14-year-old capable of persuading her parents to move from suburban Pennsylvania to Nashville for her career clearly had ambition to burn. Her early, youthful love songs evolved into hits like “Blank Space”, which held their own against boisterous Max Martin production on 1989. Throughout every phase, her songwriting has blurred the lines between the public and private, burying enough real-life clues to make clear that only Swift can own her narrative. Though 2017’s reputation was perceived as gorgeously constructed dramatic theatre—its heroes and villains drawn from Swift’s public feuds—it also showcased some of her most direct love songs (“Delicate”). She turned further towards romance on 2019’s Lover—notably its title track—before shifting towards the ruminative and relatively lo-fi bedroom pop of songs like “cardigan” on 2020’s pandemic releases folklore and evermore. She returned to the bed-like sonics of Midnights for 2024’s THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT (“Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart”) before reuniting with Max Martin the following year for The Life of a Showgirl, written during her record-breaking Eras Tour. “Making this was really something I’ve been wanting to do for my entire career, because I have always wanted to have fun in this type of way,” she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “To have fun, to exhibit mischief and be flirty and fun and make jokes—that’s a huge part of my personality.”