Continuing my ranking of Taylor Swift’s albums…
If Taylor Swift heavily flirted with pop music on 2012’s Red, she climbed into bed with it on 2014’s 1989. And the result was her most electrifying album to date.
This album felt like a strange detour at the time, but in retrospect I think it was a giant leap toward a sound Swift had in her all along. Though 1989 trails Fearless in overall sales, it’s the album on which she truly emerged as a global superstar.
Continuing my ranking of Taylor Swift’s albums…
Yesterday I wrote that my biggest surprise in this assessment of Taylor Swift’s discography was the relatively low placement of Speak Now. Well, I was equally surprised by how high I wound up ranking 2017’s Reputation.
This is an album I brashly dismissed as Swift’s worst when I first heard it. And here I am placing it in the top three. So, what changed?
Continuing my ranking of Taylor Swift’s albums…
One of the biggest surprises for me when reassessing Taylor Swift’s catalog was how far 2010’s Speak Now slid in my estimation.
Don’t get me wrong… it’s a great album. But before my deep dive into each of her releases, I would have named it as her best. In fact, I did just that when I recently placed it on my list of the best albums of the decade.
Continuing my ranking of Taylor Swift’s albums…
Red was a transitional album for Taylor Swift, marking her first steps into more muscular pop territory (and her first collaborations with Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback). It was also her longest album to that point, at 16 tracks.
You can feel the strain on both of those fronts, as Red feels way too long and way too unsure of itself.
This Elvis Costello track shows up on one of the reissues of his 1983 album Punch the Clock.
It’s a testament to the depth of Costello’s catalog that a song this good can end up as a forgotten B-side, and also that after months of Costello Weekends, plenty of Random Weekend appearances, and a bunch of other Song of the Day posts, I still have to much great material of his to mine.
Meet Me In Montauk 