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Taylor Swift's albums ranked ahead of 'The Life of a Showgirl' release
2 October 2025, 22:00
With TS12 on its way, we've taken a trip down memory lane and looked back at all of Taylor Swift's albums so far.
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As Taylor Swift fans eagerly await the release of her 12th album The Life of a Showgirl on October 3rd, we've been listening to Taylor's records all over again.
Known for discussing her love life through song, Taylor has been open about her emotional break-ups and friendship woes through her profound lyrics. The songstress has become a worldwide sensation since bursting onto the scene in 2006, with her 2023 – 2024 Era's Tour becoming the highest-grossing tour of all time after Taylor incorporated all of her albums into one 3.5 hour show.
After releasing her records, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, Reputation, Lover, Folklore Evermore, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department, fans are patiently waiting for The Life of a Showgirl to drop after the star teased what listener's could expect, whilst also revealing some hidden easter eggs about her upcoming tunes.
Excluding live albums, EPs and her re-recorded albums, here are all of Taylor Swift's albums ranked.
11. The Tortured Poets Department
Released in 2024, The Tortured Poets Department includes songs such as 'Loml', 'Fortnight', 'The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived' and 'I Can Do It with a Broken Heart', with some of the tunes rumoured to about Taylor's ex-boyfriends Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy.
Speaking about her album during a concert in Melbourne, Taylor revealed: "It kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life. I've never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets."
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10. Evermore
Dropping on December 11th 2020, Evermore was a surprise release many fans didn't see coming.
The hit album focuses on storytelling, with songs such as 'Willow', 'Dorothea' and 'Tolerate It' included on the tracklist.
Taylor opened up about her songwriting process for the album, telling Zane Lowe on Apple Music Tuesday: "There was a point that I got to as a writer who only wrote very diaristic songs that I felt it was unsustainable for my future moving forward.
"So what I felt after we put out ‘Folklore’ was like ‘oh wow, people are into this too, this thing that feels really good for my life and feels really good for my creativity… it feels good for them too?'"
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9. Lover
This is Taylor's first album to be released after leaving Big Machine Records, with Lover dropping on August 23 2019. 'Cruel Summer', 'The Man', 'Lover', 'London Boy', 'Me!' and 'You Need to Calm Down' all feature on the record which became a fast hit.
Speaking about the song 'Lover', Taylor told Tiny Desk: "There’s a song that I wrote on the album that I knew as soon as I wrote it, it was going to be the title track.
"Writing songs is strange because it never happens exactly the same way, but sometimes it happens in a way that feels like this weird haunting that you can’t really explain. Like you don’t know where these ideas came from and you feel like you didn’t work at all to write it, and that’s the best kind of song."
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8. 1989
Coming out in 2014, 1989 marked a turning point for Taylor as she ventured more into pop music. The album became a huge success as 'Shake It Off', 'Blank Space' and 'Bad Blood' became instant classics.
Speaking about her shift from country to pop, Taylor told Billboard: "When I knew the album had hit its stride, I went to Scott Borchetta and said, 'I have to be honest with you: I did not make a country album. I did not make any semblance of a country album.'
"And of course he went into a state of semi-panic and went through all the stages of grief — the pleading, the denial. 'Can you give me three country songs? Can we put a fiddle on Shake it Off?' And all my answers were a very firm 'no,' because it felt disingenuous to try to exploit two genres when your album falls in only one.
"I never want to pull the wool over people’s eyes, because people are so much smarter than a lot of marketing professionals give them credit for."
7. Folklore
Taylor's first album of 2020 was Folklore, which contained anthems including 'Cardigan' and 'Betty', the latter of which includes the names of Taylor's friends Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively's children Betty, Inez and James.
The singer opened up about writing the songs in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, stating: "In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness.
"Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory. I've told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve."
6. Reputation
Release in 2017, Taylor cemented her status as a pop icon following the announcement of her Reputation album.
This record features the hits 'Look What You Made Me Do', '...Ready for It?' and 'End Game', which quickly became fan favourites.
It seems that Taylor was inspired by Game of Thrones, with the star telling Entertainment Weekly: "These songs were half based on what I was going through, but seeing them through a Game of Thrones filter….‘Look What You Made Me Do’ is literally Arya Stark’s kill list."
She added: "'King of My Heart’ was influenced by Khal Drogo and Daenerys. It’s even got this post-hook of drums — I wanted them to sound like Dothraki drums. 'I Did Something Bad’ I wrote after Arya and Sansa conspire to kill Littlefinger. That and ‘Look What You Made Me Do,’ have Cersei vibes, too. Daenerys as well."
5. Midnights
Taylor's 2022 album Midnights is a concept album including tunes such as 'Anti-Hero', 'Lavender Haze' and 'Karma'.
Opening up about about her hit 'Anti-Hero', Taylor said: "The story of 'Anti-Hero' is that it really encapsulates this album and sort of the darkest corners of your mind when you can’t sleep. Playing out a dismal version of your very dark future, um, being afraid of what everyone thinks about you.
"Really exploring your own self-loathing and kind of having a shocking, scary self-awareness about your flaws as a human being, you know? Anxiety, it’s, uh, it’s all throughout this song."
4. Red
Taylor's fourth album Red was released in 2012 and is the last to be promoted as a country album.
'22', 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together', 'I Knew You Were Trouble' and 'Red' feature on the record, which became a smash hit worldwide.
During an appearance at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Taylor revealed all about 'Red', saying: "I was writing this song and I was thinking about correlating the colours to the different feelings I went through.
"You have the great part of red, like the red emotions that are daring and bold and passion and love and affection. And then you have on the other side of the spectrum, jealousy and anger and frustration and you didn’t call me back and I need space."
3. Speak Now
Encapsulating the transition from adolescence to adulthood, Taylor's Speak Now album was released in 2010.
Opening up to ET about her album at the time, Taylor revealed: "I don't think I would have been happy about this album if I hadn't written about all of it.
"I tend to include details and the entire story, because, for me, the most fun part about this, and the most intriguing part about music, is the storytelling that's woven into it with the lyrics."
2. Taylor Swift
The star burst onto the music scene with her debut album Taylor Swift in 2006. The country album featured the tracks 'Teardrops on My Guitar', 'Tim McGraw' and 'Our Song'.
It seems like this record was the start of Taylor's easter egg obsession, with the star telling the Washington Post: "When I was 15 and putting together my first album, [...] I decided to encode the lyrics with hidden messages using capital letters. That's how it started, and my fans and I have since descended into colour coding, numerology, word searches, elaborate hints, and Easter eggs."
1. Fearless
Fearless contains tunes such as 'Love Story', 'Fearless' and 'You Belong With Me' which became immediate hits shortly after they were released.
Revealing why she chose the name of her album to be Fearless, Taylor told The Boot: "I really wanted to make sure it was the right choice, so I took that word 'fearless' and I applied [it] to each one of the things that my songs deal with: getting your heart broken, having to face the fact that you're not going to be with the person you thought you were going to be with, someone apologising to you over and over again for something they're never going to stop doing, having faith that maybe someday things will change -- all of those things I thought had a fearless element to them.
"Also, I think that the word 'fearless' doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have any fears. I think that sometimes being fearless is having fears but jumping anyway."
