Welcome to Dissected, where we disassemble a band’s catalog, a director’s filmography, or some other critical pop-culture collection. This time, we take a look at Taylor Swift’s full discography in celebration of Midnights, released in October 2022.

All right, here’s the thing — ranking Taylor Swift‘s discography is not an easy task.

When considering a songwriter whose work spans so many different eras, it’s only to be expected that different people will have different personal connections to parts of her catalogue. I’ve written in the past that less stellar tracks from Swift can be treated like smudges on a crystal wine glass set — everything is still pretty beautiful, and often much better than collections that might be found elsewhere.

Swift’s journey from girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet has been over a decade, meaning her fan base has grown up with her. In recent years, folklore and evermore offered a chance for doubters to see Swift’s songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword. Songwriting prowess is not new here — it’s just taken different forms as Swift has transformed from teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult.

For this ranking, we consulted Swift’s catalogue through a few different lenses. We dug into the album artwork (I Can Picture It), the best and worst tracks on the album (The 1 and Tolerate It, respectively), and analyzed her lead single rollout. Naturally, we highlighted lyrics from each album that feel like a personal attack (there are always a few), selected the best music video from each era (If This Was a Movie), and highlighted the best bridge from each collection (‘Cause Baby, I Could Build a Bridge). Our overall thoughts are summarized in the section marked Call It What You Want.

Looking back, it’s pretty amazing that the very brave seventeen-year old, curly-headed girl who sat on the CMAs stage and bravely sang her debut single, “Tim McGraw,” to Tim McGraw himself would go on to be, arguably, the biggest pop star in the world for a time.

If you revisit that performance, though, you’ll see that Swift already has a certain boldness to her. She didn’t know just how long, difficult, wonderful, magical, and miserable the road ahead of her was, but she was ready for the adventure. Her life experience has always informed her work, and the result is a collection of stories that will be part of the pop culture landscape for a very long time.

Without further ado, our ranking — are you ready for it?

— Mary Siroky
Contributing Editor