Over the past 20 years, Taylor Swift has certainly established “A Place in this World” for herself.

Swift’s self-titled debut album will turn 20 years old Saturday, marking an era-spanning stay as a paragon of popular music. The artist’s discography has transformed from her country roots in “Fearless,” to her pop princess days of “1989” and her folk-inspired poetic lyricism on “evermore.”

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Read on for the Daily Bruin’s Arts contributors’ selection of the album most set to “Long Live.”

“Speak Now”

“Speak Now” marked “the end of a decade but the start of an age” for Swift.

The teenage singer-songwriter could have kept replicating her tried-and-true country formula for guaranteed success following her Album of the Year win for “Fearless” at the 2010 Grammys. Instead, she chose to reinvent herself with “Speak Now,” released later that year. While many late 2000s critics credited Swift’s collaborators for her success, the rising star turned that skepticism into inspiration, writing her third album entirely on her own. Along the way, she managed to solidify her place in the future of pop music.

“Speak Now” conveyed that Swift was far more than just a country star. Tracks like “The Story Of Us” and “Haunted” exhibited her ability to use pop-rock to express angst through both her lyrics and vocal performance. However, the album’s ballads were what truly signaled something special in her artistic perspective. In the six-and-a-half-minute “Dear John,” she vulnerably confronts her older ex, “Don’t you think I was too young? You should’ve known.”

While “Speak Now” remains one of Swift’s most underrated albums, it’s the one fans can consistently point to as an encapsulation of her appeal as a confident young woman who insists on living on her own terms and being remembered by her own words.

– Kiara Mack

“Red”

Trying to choose a favorite Taylor Swift album is like “trying to solve a crossword and realizing there’s no right answer.” “Red,” however, comes close to deciphering the puzzle.

Swift’s 2012 album is a songwriting tour de force. The third track, “Treacherous,” is often lauded as one of her best songs, praised for the subdued passion in “And I’ll do anything you say / If you say it with your hands” and the evocative imagery of “And all we are is skin and bone / Trained to get along.” Swift also successfully experiments with storytelling across the album, singing about an unnamed celebrity’s unhappy relationship with fame in “The Lucky One” and a Kennedy family love story in “Starlight.”

In “22,” Swift declares she is “happy, free, confused and lonely in the best way” – a lyric that serves as the album’s thesis. The emotional range of “Red” makes it a record to revisit. Songs such as “Stay Stay Stay,” “Everything Has Changed” and “Begin Again” represent the joys of love, while tracks like “I Almost Do,” “The Last Time” and “Sad Beautiful Tragic” cater to the sorrows of heartbreak.

The album’s lead single – “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” – was Swift’s first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, establishing her as a mainstream artist. Furthermore, “Red” contains standout tracks in both country and pop, serving as a bridge between genres in her musical evolution.

People “fall in love till it hurts or bleeds,” but “Red” will never fade in time.

– Amelia Chief

“reputation”

“The world moves on, but one thing’s for sure”: Taylor Swift will never have an album as iconic as “reputation.”

Swift’s sixth studio album came out in 2017, following a social media blackout and the fallout of her feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. “Reputation’s” lead single “Look What You Made Me Do” encapsulates the singer’s new revenge narrative with its snarky lyrics and a dark, luxurious and snake-filled music video. The album’s other upbeat vengeance anthems – such as “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” and “…Ready For It?” – deliver hard-hitting beats courtesy of the all-star lineup of producers Max Martin, Shellback and Jack Antonoff.

“Reputation” has both revenge and romance, seamlessly blending synth-pop with softer melodies. The album pairs sweet, vulnerable love songs such as “Call It What You Want” with the sultry romance of tracks like “Dress.” Plus, Swift shows off her lyrical prowess through literary allusions ranging from “A Tale of Two Cities” to “The Great Gatsby,” along with motifs such as crime and alcohol that tie the entire album together.

“There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation,” Swift wrote.

– Cara Putterman

“Lover”

No cruel summer lasts forever, but “Lover” has staying power.

Taylor Swift’s seventh studio album finds as much to say about falling in love as falling apart. Beneath its candy-colored cover, romance runs a fever: “Cruel Summer” hurtles toward a shouted confession, while the title track slows to a wedding-ready waltz under Christmas lights left up past their season. The album also detours to the jittery exuberance of “London Boy” and floats through the sparse self-interrogation of “The Archer.” Swift’s sonic range paints her as a hopeless romantic without pretending romance cures a restless mind. Commitment can inspire a kitchen-table-ready daydream one moment and a rehearsal for heartbreak the next.

“Cornelia Street” redraws a city around a relationship, imagining a breakup where losing a lover means losing the streets that remember those moments of love. “Paper Rings” shakes off that dread with a giddy, makeshift proposal, making a diamond ring beside the point of a relationship. “The Archer” strips away the bravado, leaving Swift to examine the defenses that might sabotage the intimacy she wants – all to give devotion a pulse that quickens with excitement as much as fear.

Plenty of pop records make falling in love sound effortless, but “Lover” makes the effort sound worth it.

– Audrey Nguyenhuu

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“Folklore”

When it comes to which of Taylor Swift’s albums is her best, “folklore” is undoubtedly “the 1.”

Swift surprise-released her eighth studio album in July 2020 during quarantine. Alongside longtime producer Jack Antonoff, she turned to new collaborators, seeking out The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. The result is an indie-folk project laden with mellow instrumentation under Swift’s tranquil vocals. The record blurs fact and fiction with its character writing, marking a creative shift from her historically autobiographical lyricism but without sacrificing the emotion of her previous works.

Swift’s storytelling is vast on “folklore,” from the teenage love triangle featured across “cardigan,” “august” and “betty” to the tale of an outcast socialite on “the last great american dynasty.” The imagery is novel, but Swift also conveys feelings of her own across several tracks, reminiscent of her diaristic songwriting roots in country music. On “peace,” she acknowledges the Taylor Swift-sized magnifying glass her partner lives under as a result of their relationship. “Folklore” became a landmark moment in Swift’s career, winning her a record-breaking third Grammy Award in the Album of the Year category – the most for any female artist.

On “folklore,” Swift says she’s “on some new sh*t” – a fair claim given its production, character writing and themes – but retrospectively, it’s her most Swiftian record yet.

– Ammar Rashid