Taylor Swift Albums as Halloween Candy

Happy 1989 Day to all who celebrate!

Fearless

Ballads on ballads on ballads. Listening to Fearless is like reading your high school diary with a cringe-free fondness, or watching a bunch of early days Grey’s Anatomy episode-ending voice-over music montages in a row. A kind of homesickness for a softer version of a place you only kind of remember. A classic that — like Peanut M&M’s — never disappoints.

Speak Now

If Fearless is coming-of-age as it’s happening, Speak Now is the realization that adults spend half their lives self-mythologizing. Some people just happen to be poets with guitars, which makes the whole thing a lot more romantic and a lot less like crying at your therapist. Speak Now is soft rock, it’s pop rock, it’s bluegrass, it’s “Mine” and it’s also “Ours,” and it’s a nod to goth-rock too. You know, like opening that little trap door on a box of nerds and popping their sour crunchiness into your mouth until they melt into silky sugar. Growing up always involves softening on nerds (people one and candy ones).

Red

Taylor Swift began her country crossover with Red, sure, but she also began her crossover into unapologetic adulthood, trading her fairy tale dresses for the occasional stone-cold rejection. Red is Taylor’s strongest album, start to finish, and it’s more powerful for the world weariness that peeks through. This is an album written by a woman who’s stood at the island in her kitchen and guzzled wine while scarfing down a KitKat for dinner without breaking the individual Kits apart. We’re not in “cheap-ass screw-top rosé” territory yet, but this wine’s definitely in a coffee cup.

1989

1989 sent country fans and critics into an absolute doom spiral meltdown, and it caused an existential crisis among many pop people too. It’s full of bangers that are both earwormy and sophisticated. Plenty of haters, just like Almond Joy complainers, but, man, if you can’t handle dark chocolate and coconut in your candy — or dance-pop in your cowboy boots — you need to grow up.

Reputation

Sometimes even the best of us just want to watch the world burn.

Lover

I know everyone’s still mad about the perceived queer-baiting of this Swift Era, but: can I just take a second to quote some Lover lyrics to you?

Sidewalk chalk covered in snow / Lost my gloves, you give me one / "Wanna hang out?" / Yeah, sounds like fun.

Light pink sky up on the roof / Sun sinks down, no curfew / Twenty questions, we tell the truth / You've been stressed out lately? Yeah, me too.

It’s nice to have a friend / It’s nice to have a friend.

Okay, is that or is that not the literal plot of the movie Carol (2015), dir. Todd Haynes?

The point is that sometimes you just want a whole bunch of sweetness bundled up into a single package. Sometimes you just want some 80s synth-pop and a reminder that you can still enjoy softness and slow-dancing in a cruel world. Sometimes you just want a whole thing of the best flavor of the best fruity candy on the market.

Folklore

Nothing says Autumnal Indie Coffeehouse Playlist like collabing with Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, Bon Iver — and artificial caramel apple flavoring. This is also Taylor’s first time embracing the fact that every break-up’s got multiple angles, and probably she’s her bad guys’ bad guy, which is a very sour-pucker green apple experience the first time you have it.

Evermore

Look, sometimes you just gotta look back at your missteps and say “Long story short, it was a bad time” and move on by returning to what you know. Well, kind of. Evermore is full of love songs, but they’re way more wary and prickly than so many of the ones that came before. Not longing for simpler times, exactly, but fully aware that combos as perfect as chocolate and peanut butter don’t come around too often in a single lifetime.

Midnights

The thing about Midnights — the album, the Milky Way minis, the actual time of day — is that they’re more of a vibe than anything else. Like maybe you’ll dance with the devil, or reminisce about girlhood, or look in the mirror long enough to admit that: Hi, yes, the problem sometimes is, in fact, you. It’s bittersweet and it’s fleeting, and if you get to the point where you’re dusting off tracks leftover from your Reputation era, your best bet is to, bare minimum, sleep on it.