an album review of taylor swift's entire discography cont'd
An Album Review of Taylor Swift's
Entire Discography
REPUTATION
Ready For It?
I love so much the juxtaposition between the energy of the verses and the much softer, dreamier energy of the chorus. It’s just so catchy.
every love i’ve known in comparison is a failure. 8/10.
I Did Something Bad
To me this song is just Look What You Made Me do but somewhat worse, although I really like the rah-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dah-dahs.
rah-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dah-dah. 6/10.
Delicate
For sure this is one of the worse songs on the album. Entirely unremarkable but still very reputation. It’s such a consistently good album that even the low points are perfectly fine. I don’t think this anymore but I don’t want to recalculate my average rating. This is a good song.
are you ever dreaming of me? 6/10.
Look What You Made Me Do
One of the most fun Taylor Swift songs to sing along to, and it’s also in my range!! She could stand to have more than one line being repeated in the chorus. “I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time” was the title of my poli sci final paper. In context it made sense.
but not for me, not for me, all i think about is karma. 9/10.
So It Goes
I really like the way she says “so it goes” and “one two three,” but I think it would be better as a song about her feud with Kim and Kanye than a song about how she loves Joe Alwyn. Love the Kurt Vonnegut reference.
we break down a little. 8/10
Gorgeous
Essentially this song is just a gender swapped version of the idea that boys are crummy to girls because they’re into them and personally I think this idea is stupid even if it’s gender swapped!! As it goes along, it gets very catchy, though, and I like the instrumental bloops in the background.
but if you’re single, that’s honestly worse. 7/10.
Getaway Car
Just a fantastic bop from start to finish. Any greyscale outfit is, in my eyes, a Getaway Car outfit. Bonus points if there’s candlelight.
don’t pretend it’s such a mystery. 9/10.
King of My Heart
The way she says “American queen” and “schoolgirl crush” is so satisfying and I like the “HA” before the bridge. It’s very catchy; I just hate the line about him being the king of her heart, body, and soul. “Is this the end of all the endings” sounds exactly like “your roommate’s cheap-ass screw top rose” and I think that’s very fun.
salute to me, i’m your american queen. 8/10
Dancing With Our Hands Tied
The verses are fantastic. The chorus isn’t doing it like the verses, but the bridge sure is.
i could've spent forever with your hands in my pockets. 9/10.
Dress
This song is just the perfect version of what it is. It is [chef’s kiss]. Fantastic. Brilliant. The parts with fast lyrics are very exciting without feeling like it’s too many syllables squished together *coughcoughchampagneproblemscough.*
even in my worst times, you could see the best in me. 10/10.
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
The chorus is real fun. There’s nothing wrong with this song, except once I was doing homework on O’Neill 4 and listening to this song and I unplugged my earbuds and for some reason the song didn’t pause. But I think it’s okay to subject people to Taylor Swift.
because you break them, i had to take them away. 7/10.
Call It What You Want
I always confuse this song with Dancing With Our Hands Tied, except it’s not as good. The chorus is good. The bridge is dumb. The second verse is fantastic!!
bridges burn, i never learn, at least i did one thing right. 8/10.
New Year’s Day
This song is very nice and I like listening to it in my bed in the middle of the night. I think it’s about platonic love. Nothing in the lyrics suggests that she wants to clean up bottles with her boyfriend specifically. You don’t tell your boyfriend to never become a stranger, you tell your boyfriend that you don’t ever want to break up. It’s different concerns. I also accept the interpretation that it’s about love broadly, including both platonic and romantic love.
please don’t ever become a stranger. 9/10.
overall: My average rating for reputation is 8. It’s consistently very good and on theme. It could maybe use a few more songs about feuds and fewer songs about Joe Alwyn. This is the best album to listen to while doing homework. It’s not the best album to listen to while writing a debate; that’s Speak Now.
LOVER
I Forgot That You Existed
This is kind of a fun song but if one listens to it, one remembers that they exist. And I hate the “so,,, yeah” and the words that she speaks instead of singing.
would’ve fought the whole town. 6/10.
Cruel Summer
Iconic!! It disappoints me that she sings “I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below” up the octave at the Eras Tour but I can’t sing the low note at all, so it’s not fair for me to judge. She made a great choice repeating the bridge.
i don’t wanna keep secrets just to keep you. 8/10.
Lover
A guy who went to my high school and his girlfriend once sang this song as a duet for our Valentine’s Day Cabaret and it was very amusing. This is an obvious observation, but this sure is a romantic song.
i’ve loved you three summers now, honey, but i want them all. 7/10.
The Man
On the one hand, I don’t think Taylor Swift has the most complete view of feminism with all the advantages she has in life; on the other hand, if I was a man, my high school history teacher would not have had that vendetta against me, and the urgent care doctor would perhaps have believed me that my knitting needle stab wound was as deep as it was, so it’s not like she doesn’t have a point.
when everyone believes you, what’s that like? 7/10.
The Archer
Today I read an article about how to determine your Taylor Swift album astrological chart and it said that Taylor Swift must like astrology because this song references that she’s a Sagittarius. It was a really stupid article. This is a great song. The second half really justifies the first half. It may be unfortunate that he, as it turns out, could not stay.
all of my enemies started out friends. 9/10.
I Think He Knows
If I had three wishes from a genie but they all had to be tiny, one of them would be for this song to be in my range. It is one of my greatest regrets in life, although it’s not like there’s anything I could have done. The fact that the most romantic thing to Taylor Swift is not having to communicate her feelings is supporting evidence for my theory that she has bad communication skills.
he’s so obsessed with me and, boy, i understand. 8/10.
Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince
This is really subtle for a protest song, and I don’t like the bridge. It’s clever that she starts the Eras Tour with the line “it’s been a long time coming.” It has!! I did not attend the Eras Tour because it seemed like a lot of money and effort, and I am an unmotivated cheapskate, and her music is free and on Spotify.
it’s been a long time coming. 5/10.
Paper Rings
This is the only Taylor Swift song that my brother likes. My brother hates all music. Once again I am underwhelmed by the bridge.
kiss me twice ‘cause it’s gonna be alright. 8/10.
Cornelia Street
I don’t think she’s ever going to walk Cornelia Street again. I can’t imagine being in a relationship and half the time just being scared it’s going to end.
back when we were card sharks playing games. 7/10.
Death By a Thousand Cuts
I want to publicly apologize to my friend Kaitlin for the time I solicited suggestions on the title of my poli sci final paper (ultimately I Rose Up From the Dead, I Do it All the Time) that were Taylor Swift puns and she suggested United We Stand, Divided We Fall and I told her that’s not a Taylor Swift lyric because I wasn’t at the time familiar with this song. I would also like to publicly thank my friend Kaitlin for introducing me to this song.
gave you too much but it wasn’t enough. 9/10.
London Boy
I bet this song is better in London, especially if the listener is male. I’m not saying it’s bad in other places.
god, i love the english. 7/10.
False God
This song has no exciting melodies. The only exciting thing in this song is the saxophone, but saxophone is a terrible instrument anyway.
i’m new york city. 3/10.
You Need To Calm Down
I guess the title is good advice broadly. I NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE SNAKES AND STONES LYRIC THAT’S SO REAL.
we all got crowns. 5/10.
Afterglow
This song is just great. This entire song is about her bad communication skills.
sorry that i hurt you. 9/10.
It’s Nice to Have a Friend
Once I saw someone on the internet associate this song with Afterglow and Daylight, which are entirely different both in subject matter and quality. Afterglow and Daylight do NOT have a third sister. The trumpet is great.
up on the roof. 2/10.
Daylight
For about a month my discord status was each lyric of this song in order. The lyrics are consistently pretty great. I would be really amused if in five years she has a major epiphany about love and writes a song about how she used to believe love was golden but it’s actually turquoise or whatever.
threw out our cloaks and our daggers because it’s morning now. 9/10.
All of the Girls You Loved Before
Conceptually I’m a big fan of this song because I like the idea that your past has turned you into the person you are now, and regrets are not usually productive. It reminds me of thank u next, which is also a good song.
i wanna teach you how forever feels. 9/10.
overall: My biggest grievance is I’m just not into the aesthetic of this era. My average rating is 6.94. As you see, I have other grievances, too.
folklore
the 1
This is almost the best song on the album and it’s notably better than the others in that I can sing it.
and it’s another day waking up alone. 10/10
cardigan
At a certain point in this song I have to stop whatever I’m doing and feel upset.
your heartbeat on the high line, once in twenty lifetimes. 9/10.
the last great american dynasty
This song is fine. I sort of feel like it’s trying to be ~quirky~ for no reason.
pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea. 6/10.
my tears ricochet
Do her tears ricochet off of her guitar? Objectively I think this might be one of her best songs lyrically, and if someone told me her music had no depth, I would make them listen to this song. The bridge is fantastic and makes up for the verses being a little underwhelming. Counterintuitively (I don’t like Socrates), I like this song more now that I think it’s an extremely good representation of Socrates’s personality. Think about it.
i can go anywhere i want, anywhere i want, just not home. 8/10.
mirrorball
My mirrorball girl phase only lasted about two weeks, but this song did a lot for me during those two weeks. I have a laptop sticker now with my favorite line from this song. I’m somewhat concerned it will cause people to think I am either a theist or spiritual, although I am neither. I like the line in the same way I like the Lemony Snicket quote, “strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.” At a certain point I just have to accept that I have vibes that make people suspect that I’m religious.
i’m still a believer, but i don’t know why. 9/10.
seven
This song was a nice choice for Heartstopper, even though I usually think of the song as being sadder than that scene.
our love lasts so long. 9/10.
august
This has to be one of my top five Taylor Swift songs. It’s crazy how she invented an entire month. Taylor Swift is the music industry, the economy, and the calendar. I don’t really understand why people put “to live for the hope of it all” on t-shirts since August girl is living for the hope of having an affair/Betty’s significant other leaving Betty for August girl.
back when we were still changing for the better. 10/10.
this is me trying
This seems like a great song if one is experiencing gifted kid burnout, but that’s never happened to me. Not to flex or anything. I don’t like the chorus.
i got wasted like all my potential. 7/10.
illicit affairs
The bridge is the only really good part.
look at this godforsaken mess that you made me. 4/10.
invisible string
I don’t think there was an invisible string tying her to him. This is a pretty song, and it’s a pretty thought.
give me the blues and then purple-pink skies. 9/10.
mad woman
The syllable density in this song is too high and I just don’t care for it.
it’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought the two of you together. 3/10.
epiphany
I can see how someone else would like this song.
with you i serve. 4/10.
betty
If James is a boy there’s literally no way they get back together. This is a terrible apology. If James is a girl I can believe they got back together. The narrator is either a guy who doesn’t know how to apologize or take responsibility, or a girl who has a lot she needs to work through. Also my friend Tirna says that if James is a girl, the stupid friends are probably homophobic. Even if James is a girl she still needs to work on apologizing. This is a really bad apology.
i dreamt of you all summer long. 8/10.
peace
This song is wildly underrated. I don’t like it when songs don’t have coherent melodies that I can hum after hearing them once or twice, but somehow I really like this song even though the melody is kind of strange.
suddenly the summer, it’s clear. 9/10
hoax
This song is also wildly underrated. It’s interesting how it’s allegedly about, like, three different situations. I like any Taylor Swift song that upsets me.
my only one, my kingdom come undone. 10/10.
the lakes
This song is pretentious and lyrically it’s trying too hard. Every line is so extra. It is so aggressively not like the other girls. Why are you putting the words calamitous and insurmountable in the same line. If someone wrote a song like this about me I would stop associating with them. I really like the theme of going somewhere better and then dying, which is why I also like the song odysseus by Camie. That song is like this but better.
those windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry. 8/10.
overall: My average rating for this album is 7.69 I love folklore!! It’s just a bunch of pretty songs that make me sad.
evermore
willow
My friend Celina likes this song. It gives me intense nostalgia for last September. I always listen to this song on trains, especially trains which take me home. Why would everywhere else be hollow? What does that mean?
every bait and switch was a work of art. 10/10.
champagne problems
I relate to this song. The chorus has too many syllables squeezed into too few lines for too long, but eventually (after several months), you get used to it. I never get used to the little scale at the end. I hate that scale. This song has a train in it, too!! I wonder why I don’t listen to it on trains. I took the night train for a reason. The reason was that I didn’t want to miss my floboe sectional.
she’ll patch up your tapestry that i shred. 8/10.
gold rush
This song has a lot of great sounds. If Taylor Swift is a fan of the Boston College football team, she probably also enjoys the Boston College marching band.
with my eagles t-shirt hanging from the door. 8/10.
tis the damn season
The best Christian denomination is Methodists. I only disagree with them on one level. My Taylor Swift fan theory/psychoanalysis is that the reason her relationship with Joe Alwyn didn’t work out is that she expects her significant other to be able to read her mind even if she doesn’t communicate. There are several reasons I think this, and all of them are song lyrics, and one of them is about how Dorothea’s ex is the only one who can tell which smiles she’s faking, and it’s like,,, why is this compelling? If you knew how to communicate, your significant other would not have to be able to tell which smiles you were faking.
you could call me babe for the weekend. 9/10.
tolerate it
I saw someone on the internet say they think this song is about how Taylor Swift’s cats don’t like her very much which is just so funny. I don’t like this song.
if it’s all in my head, tell me now. 3/10.
happiness
I really do not like the chorus and I think it’s stupid. Actually, I only like the first verse.
honey, when i’m above the trees. 4/10.
dorothea
This song is so annoying to me for no reason. It’s honestly kind of a bop but I can’t listen to it because it upsets something deep within me.
we all wanna be you. 4/10.
ivy
As I have said, I titled my final for my Roman history class He’s Going to Burn This (Senate) House to the Ground and I don’t actually think I single handedly turned my professor into a swiftie, but he’s referenced her at least 4 times in the last two weeks after referencing her never as far as I can remember, so I like to believe I did. The second bridge annoys me so much but the rest of the song is great.
crescent moon, coast is clear; spring breaks loose, but so does fear. 8/10.
cowboy like me
Increasingly I realize that my favorite Taylor Swift songs are the ones that upset me the most. This song gives me intense nostalgia for last September. My former roommate has been such a positive force in my life in such ways as telling me to listen to this song, which got me into folklore and evermore back when I mostly listened to her first ~4 albums.
you asked me to dance, but i said, dancing is a dangerous game. 10/10.
long story short
This song gives me intense nostalgia for last October. I like to think that the love interest in this song is her coat because of the line about “now I keep you warm” but that doesn’t really make sense because the coat keeps you warm. I’ve been told I project my love for my coat onto media.
when i dropped my sword i threw it in the bushes and knocked on your door. 10/10.
marjorie
This is a very nice song, only I don’t really care for the verses.
what died didn’t stay dead. 8/10.
closure
I enjoy a good 5/4 time signature, and this is not a good 5/4 time signature. In the verses it is very annoying. That’s not a rhythm. It sounds like she sings it normally and then randomly sped it up and slowed it down in different places. The chorus is great. I’m not sure how I feel about the chaotic percussion.
it cut deep to know you, right to the bone. 6/10.
right where you left me
I’ve heard an interpretation that evermore as an album is about dwelling on your past and then the two bonus tracks are giving you the choice between getting over it and moving on. But I like this song much better than it’s time to go so I guess I’m never getting over my past. I’ve also heard the interpretation that this song is about Dianna Agron and the glass shattering on the white cloth refers to breaking a glass wrapped in a napkin at Jewish weddings. This interpretation is stupid. She knocked over the glass by mistake because she was surprised. Also, if it was a glass breaking at a wedding, it would be glass shattered in the white cloth, not on the white cloth.
if our love died young, i can’t bear witness. 9/10.
it’s time to go
I think this song is too on the nose, but I appreciate the sentiment.
that old familiar body ache. 4/10.
overall: I say evermore is my favorite album but my average rating is 7.214 so empirically that’s untrue. But on average I rate reputation the highest and reputation is definitely not my favorite album. I just love long story short so much and there is not a song that upsets me more than cowboy like me. Like in a fun way. It’s not that serious.
MIDNIGHTS
Lavender Haze
This song is fun and good and I like it.
oh, you don’t ever say too much. 7/10.
Maroon
The second half of the chorus is what champagne problems bridge could have been! I like the parts of this song that sound like “is this the end of all the endings?” from King of My Heart.
the rubies that i gave up. 8/10.
Anti-Hero
I’m not the biggest fan of this song, but I really love how she performs it at the Eras tour. The t-shirt dress is very cute and I would wear it. I titled the first of my two essays I had to write about the Republic this week I’ll Stare Directly At the Sun: Different Ideas of Truth for Rulers and Guardians because they do stare directly at the sun!! I think I am so funny. My TA wrote that Taylor Swift means that she’s doing self destruction, not enlightenment. It’s not that deep, but I’m glad she got the reference.
midnights become my afternoons. 6/10.
Snow On the Beach
I don’t think this song counts as a feature because I can’t hear Lana Del Ray. It is very pretty and nice. It feels like snow on a beach!!
flying in a dream, stars by the pocketful. 8/10.
You’re On Your Own Kid
This song feels a little bit disjointed between different verses and choruses, but the bridge is great.
i saw something they can’t take away. 7/10.
Midnight Rain
I tried to explain to my mom that this song is about being in a mostly wholesome relationship and feeling trapped anyway with the lyric “I broke his heart ‘cause he was nice” and she thought that was a really bad reason to break someone’s heart, which, in fairness, it is. But she didn’t really break his heart because he was nice, it just felt that way. As I understand it.
and the life i gave away. 8/10.
Question…?
This song has about 3 notes for the vast majority so they just throw in a descending scale in the bridge and it doesn’t work, and the rhythm of the lyrics is annoying, and I hate the end of the bridge.
i remember. 3/10.
Vigilante Sh*t
I think the first line is fun, actually. I don’t care for the rest of the song.
someone told his white collar crimes to the FBI. 3/10.
Labyrinth
I feel like I can never hear the words because it’s just breathy sounds.
i’ll be getting over you my whole life. 4/10.
Bejeweled
If this is actually what her relationship with Joe Alwyn was like, I’m very glad they broke up. Being in a relationship that feels stifling is really no fun. I relate very strongly to the second verse because I did do all the extra credit and I did get graded on a curve.
i made you my world (huh?), have you heard (huh?) 10/10.
Karma
This song is just incredibly fun and the bridge goes so hard. After I left my mirrorball girl phase, I immediately entered my Karma bridge phase. And now I’m well-adjusted again. The most delusional I ever am is that I think Karma being the eleventh song on the album means that she’s going to release the lost album Karma as her eleventh album. Relatively soon I will be proven wrong, I’m sure. I was thinking about titling my second essay on the Republic this week Sweet Like Justice but instead I titled it Taught Me Some Hard Lessons, I Just Forget What They Were because I don’t think anyone in this book makes convincing arguments.
ask me what i learned from all those tears. 9/10.
Sweet Nothing
Broadly speaking, I don’t think I’m very delusional (recent comments notwithstanding), but whenever I listen to this song, I try to convince myself it’s a breakup song. If he didn’t want anything from her, is it really a sustainable relationship? What were the stakes? Was it really committed? This song is great because the time signature is 12/8, which has to be true because it rhymes.
does it ever miss wicklow sometimes? 8/10.
Mastermind
This seems like a bad way to approach relationships. I always think she’s going to say “and the liquor in our coffee” which I think is a thing some people do in Italy. My mom told me a story that she brought my dad to visit her family in Italy and he had a difficult time in that he never wanted grappa in his coffee, or coffee at all, or red meat.
checkmate, i couldn’t lose. 6/10.
The Great War
I like everything about this song except that the extended metaphor is stupid. Love is like war? Of course it is. Be serious. I love the snare drum in the last verse. It’s interesting how this song is about World War I and then you know what came after World War I, was World War II. “World War” is a bit of a silly name for a war. It’s like saying “Big War.”
so i justified it. 7/10.
Bigger Than the Whole Sky
One day if I become very upset I might like this song.
every single thing i touch becomes sick with sadness. 5/10.
Paris
This song is exciting and nice. I bet it would be so fun if one was actually in Paris.
romance is not dead if you keep it just yours. 8/10.
High Infidelity
This is like a slightly better version of Question…?
seemed like the right thing at the time. 5/10.
Glitch
I don’t like this song, but there seem to be a lot of easter eggs associated with it, and I do really like easter eggs.
but it’s been 2190 days of our love blackout. 4/10.
Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve
This song used to upset me so much I couldn’t really listen to it, but now I don’t wish I could go back and change things about my life, so I can listen to it again. It is so so good. I feel very strongly that it isn’t about religious guilt. The religious imagery is just a metaphor. The percussion feels like closure but actually well-integrated.
god rest my soul, i miss who i used to be. 9/10.
Dear Reader
I never listened to this song all the way through, but it gets quite good toward the end. The bridge is fantastic and thematically it’s very interesting.
these desperate prayers of a cursed man. 7/10.
Hits Different
The only time I was ever this upset, the song hadn’t come out yet, so it didn’t do me very much good. The line about the sand hurting her feelings is so funny. I have a certain amount of respect for the Gaylors and their tenacity and attention to detail, but there is no way this song is proof that Taylor Swift likes women. Obviously the phrase “I can still melt your world, girl” would be directed at a girl, but no one puts three adjectives before “girl” in that sentence structure. That’s not a natural sounding sentence. “Argumentative antithetical dream girl” is a new lyric and as such is an incomplete sentence that could theoretically refer to either the love interest or the narrator. There are incomplete sentences in Taylor Swift songs. My Latin professor says that learning to read Latin by reading Cicero is like learning to read English through Taylor Swift lyrics because there is some nonstandard grammar. And that’s okay. There is no way she came out in a fairly ambiguous song lyric. Gaylor conspiracy theories aside, this song is very easy to interpret as being gay and this is the best way to think about it. There are, in fact, a lot of Taylor Swift songs that don’t feel straight to me.
you were the one that i loved! don’t need another metaphor, it’s simple enough. 9/10.
You’re Losing Me
I’M SORRY JOE ALWYN CAN’T READ YOUR MIND BUT I’M NOT SURE WHAT HE’S SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT IT AND IF YOU DON’T TELL PEOPLE HOW YOU FEEL, THEY JUST AREN’T GOING TO KNOW. THIS IS THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE.
i wouldn’t marry me either. 4/10.
overall: My average rating for Midnights is 6.590 repeating. This feels low. When Midnights first came out I was sort of disappointed but after fully a year I’m happy to say it’s grown on me. I found a text from last October where I told someone Anti Hero was my favorite song, which is odd, because I don’t remember being on drugs then.
THE EMPIRICAL TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM RANKING WHICH I DISAVOW ENTIRELY
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