Do you want to look like a proper bandwagonning idiot when you suddenly start stanning for Taylor Swift this autumn and can't name the majority of Her hymns? No? Well, here's the perfect opportunity to educate yourself on Her discography! Do you look like a fool dragging Taylor Swift because you only know those two pop radio hits that are barely representative of Her extensive catalog? Yes? Well, now you can learn what Her music is
actually like! Are you a dedicated disciple who can correctly answer just about any Taylor Swift trivia question posed to you? Yes? Well, then you're definitely in the right place.
Welcome to Essentially, Swift: A Taylor Swift Music Rate.
Everything but the hits.
For a lot of reasons, conducting a Taylor Swift essentials rate just makes sense. The most obvious of these reasons is, of course, the fact that She is the biggest album seller of Her generation. In fact, Taylor Swift is the
best selling solo artist to debut during the present millennium! All of Her four albums have been certified at least four times platinum and have produced a handful of hit singles. All of Her albums have spent upwards of 75 weeks charting on the Billboard 200, with Her self-titled debut album being the
11th longest charting album in Billboard's history. When
Red spent its sixth week atop the Billboard 200, Taylor became the first artist since The Beatles to spent six (or more) weeks at #1 with three consecutive studio albums.
But Taylor Swift is seeing more than just dollar signs. Each of Her albums has been met with widespread critical praise. For example, Her sophomore album
Fearless is the
most awarded album in the history of country music, and made Taylor the youngest artist to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Her follow up album
Speak Now was a bold artistic statement due to the fact that the young singer-songwriter (She was 19 at the time)
wrote and composed every song by Herself. Her fourth studio album,
Red was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, making Taylor one of just a half dozen female artists to be nominated in the category after having previously won.
What makes Taylor's albums so critically and commercially successful? Well, it starts with Taylor Herself. She's a remarkably prolific songwriter who was heralded as something of a protege when She burst onto the country scene at 16 years old. From a young age, She had been writing songs that were simple in nature, yet also universally relateable and poignantly emotional; point in case, She wrote the touching song "The Outside" at age 12. She's only improved as a songwriter as She has grown up, which makes it all the more exciting each time that She releases new music. Here is a young woman who effortlessly connects to people with Her words, providing the soundtrack for an uncountable number of crushes and break ups. But don't be fooled into thinking that it's all love songs, all of the time. When She deviates from Her best subject matter, the results are always stellar. Consider, for example, 2012's tear-jerking charity song "Ronan," which was inspired by the true story of a four year old child who lost his life to cancer. Now, as She prepares Her fifth studio album, we face rumors that She has "broadened Her subject matter" and that She's better than ever. We can only hope it's true.
The Music
So now I can finally get caught up.
