If you’re anything like me, you’re a HUGE Taylor Swift fan, a “swiftie” as some self-identify as. Across multiple different genres, Swift is able to connect with her millions of fans through her music, which millions of different people have millions of different opinions on. Rolling Stone Magazine has been reviewing and ranking Taylor Swift albums for years, but they recently updated their ranking of Swift’s entire discography, including her latest release Midnights.
From Rolling Stone Magazine’s ranking of all of Taylor Swift’s music, I have sorted them by album to have more of an insight as to how they would rank them. Compiling this list was shocking, I would never rank some of these songs so low, but once I began to understand some of the trends within their ranking, I began to understand why they ranked it the way that they did (not that I agree with their list). The deeper I began to look at this list, the more I realized that the more “popular” songs (the ones that went viral for a moment on TikTok pretty much), were ranked higher than those that many fans believe are lyrically and sonically better. Songs obviously gain popularity for a reason, if they were bad songs, they simply wouldn’t be popular, it was just interesting to see how some of this popularity impacted this ranking. Some of this list was predictable (I knew what their favorite song was going to be from the start), and many other parts were shocking, leaving some of my favorites ranked low and some of my least favorites towards the top.
Taylor Swift
While I may rank Swift’s debut album as my least favorite of hers, I would argue that almost all of the songs are good, they just fall short in some places, only leaving room for growth. From the debut album, Rolling Stone ranked “Our Song” as their favorite. Not very surprising, it is a very nostalgic and catchy song, and in all honesty I would probably rank it as my favorite too. “A Place In This World” and “I’m Only Me When I’m With You” both came in as their least favorites. I would personally rank them higher within this album, but not too far up in her discography. I was shocked to see that “Mary’s Song (Oh My My My)” was ranked so low within this album, I personally would place it closer to “Our Song,” and not in the bottom half surrounded by “A Perfectly Good Heart” and “Stay Beautiful” (some of my least favorites).
Fearless
I think Fearless was one of the more shocking rankings to me. Rolling Stone ranks “Fifteen” as their favorite song on the album, their fifteenth favorite Taylor Swift song overall. While it is a good song, it is definitely far from her best on the album. Some of Taylor’s Version (From The Vault) tracks made it pretty high on this list, such as “Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” coming in as their third favorite on the album, although they are some of my least favorites on this rerecording. “Hey, Stephen,” my personal favorite on Fearless, ended up as their fifth favorite track on the album, which I’ll take considering how much I disagree with this ranking. Another one of my favorites, “That’s The Way I Loved You,” ended up as their third least favorite track, which becomes more shocking to me the more I think about it because of its popularity on TikTok when it was about to be rereleased, which would follow the trends I observed in this list.
Speak Now
As I mentioned the trends I began to find in the ranking, they were very present in their ranking of Speak Now. More popular songs were typically ranked higher than the lesser known tracks. Rolling Stone’s ranking of their five favorite tracks on Speak Now makes sense following this trend, with “Long Live” and “Dear John” coming in at first and second place, immediately followed by “Enchanted,” “Ours,” and “Last Kiss,” all of which being fan favorites and having a short lived moment on TikTok. What was most shocking to me with this ranking was how low “Back to December,” “Innocent,” “Haunted,” and “Never Grow Up” are ranked. They all fall within the second half of their compiled ranking of the album, disappointing both myself and surely many other “swifties.”
Red
Coming as a shock to nobody, “All Too Well,” both the original version and the newly released ten minute version, come in at number one for the album, also being named Rolling Stone’s favorite Taylor Swift song of all time. It was followed by “Holy Ground,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Red,” and “Nothing New ft. Phoebe Bridgers (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault). “Nothing New” is my favorite vault track thus far, I absolutely love how Taylor and Phoebe’s voices sound together and how relatable some of the lyrics are. I was very surprised to see that they decided to rank “Ronan,” a song about a young boy battling with childhood cancer that was released as a charity single for cancer research. The song is lyrically beautiful, compiled from quotes within blog posts from Ronan’s mother. I was shocked to see how low songs like “Sad Beautiful Tragic,” “Come Back…Be Here,” and “The Moment I Knew” ended up ranking, but I am honestly not entirely shocked by it, despite the fact that I think they should be ranked within the top ten.
1989
1989 was another shocking ranking to unveil that I don’t necessarily agree with. The magazine ranked “New Romantics” as their favorite song from the album, not shocking considering their trend of ranking the more popular songs that have gone through a trend cycle on social media, but definitely not what I would rank as number one on the album. It is followed by “Blank Space,” “Clean,” “Style,” and “This Love” in the top five. While “Blank Space” and “Style” being ranked so high comes as a shock to nobody, I was very shocked to see that two of my favorites, “Clean” and “This Love,” were ranked so high by Rolling Stone. I was shocked to see that “Bad Blood” was not only ranked last on 1989, but last out of her entire discography. This was for sure an outlier in the trend I noticed, I thought it for sure would be ranked much higher. My personal favorite on 1989, “You Are In Love,” was ranked in the bottom half of the album, which was disappointing but not entirely surprising as I understand that there are plenty of other songs on this album that people prefer.
reputation
The way reputation was ranked was very disappointing to uncover. We all know and understand how much of a cultural reset the debut single “Look What You Made Me Do” was, so why in the world would Rolling Stone rank it so low, making it their least favorite on the album?! Sure, I don’t listen to the song super frequently anymore after listening to it so many times to gain a boost in the Ticketmaster line in 2017 for the “Reputation Stadium Tour,” but I would never rank it so low knowing how impactful it was. They rank “Delicate” as their favorite on the album, which again follows the trend I noticed, followed by “New Year’s Day” as their second favorite. “King of My Heart,” my favorite on the album, was ranked within the second half of the album, which came as a bit of a shock to me. “Getaway Car” was their third favorite on the album, which is a great ranking, just shocking to me that it was not number one due to the popularity of the song and the fact that it is a fan favorite.
Lover
The least favorite track on Lover comes as a shock to nobody at all, “ME!” was ranked as their least favorite on the album, but came in at spot 219 of 229 on the list. I was shocked that “You Need to Calm Down” was not ranked right near “ME!”, with “I Forgot That You Existed,” “False God,” and “Paper Rings” (some of my favorites on Lover), coming in between the two. The five most favorite songs on the album are not super shocking, they follow the trend I noticed and all had their moment on TikTok at one point or another. Coming in at first place is the title track, “Lover,” followed by “Cruel Summer,” a fan favorite that should have been a single, “The Archer,” “Cornelia Street,” and “Daylight” coming in at number five. Similarly to “Ronan” on Red, I was surprised to see that they chose to rank “Soon You’ll Get Better,” a song about Swift’s mother and her battle with cancer. The song feels too personal for somebody from a large publication to rank and criticize, but alas, it is meant for our consumption and criticism. I was also shocked to see that “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” did not make it into their five favorites on this album, despite its popularity within fans and the success it faced after the release of Swift’s documentary, Miss Americana.
folklore
folklore is one of my favorite Taylor Swift albums, so I was glad that their ranking wasn’t entirely horrible. Their top five consisted of “mirrorball” at number one, followed by “august,” “the last great american dynasty,” “this is me trying,” and “seven.” I would say that’s a pretty solid top five. I would personally switch out “the last great american dynasty” with “cardigan,” but I can’t complain too much with this list when some of the others are atrocious. Some of my least favorites from the album such as “mad woman,” “hoax,” and “epiphany” made it at the bottom of the list, “epiphany” being ranked as their least favorite from the album. Overall, I would say that their ranking of folklore within the ranking of Swift’s entire discography is relatively solid. A majority of Rolling Stone’s favorite tracks from the album were within the top 75 songs in her discography, so they must really like the album.
evermore
The way that evermore ended up being ranked made me furious. My favorite track on the album, “gold rush,” came to be their least favorite on evermore, with “marjorie” coming in at number one. I understand that evermore may not be everyone’s favorite, even Taylor Swift barely acknowledges its existence, but you have to admit that the individual tracks are right up there with the excellence of folklore. While “right where you left me” was their second favorite, following the trend of the more popular songs being ranked higher, I was shocked to see that “‘tis the damn season” was ranked so low despite the fact that it tends to start trending around the holidays when college students go home for break. Another one of my favorites from the album, “cowboy like me” was ranked right in the middle, but it was much higher than I anticipated.
Midnights
Despite the fact that it’s relatively new, Rolling Stone was able to incorporate Midnights into their Taylor Swift songs ranking, leaving me disappointed. While it is still too recent for even me to give a solid ranking of the album, Rolling Stone was able to do it (incorrectly, may I add). Their five favorites on the album were “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” “Labyrinth,” “The Great War,” “Maroon,” and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.” All of these are for sure some of my favorites on the album, although I would replace “Labyrinth” with “You’re On Your Own Kid” (which found its way in the bottom half of this album). “Karma,” a long awaited fan favorite, was one of Rolling Stone’s least favorite songs on Midnights, their third least favorite on the album. Their least favorite is “Paris,” which is honestly shocking to me because while I have heard people in real life say they dont love the track, it has trended on TikTok and gained popularity since the release of Midnights.