Seventeen years ago today, a sixteen-year-old girl with a guitar, a meticulously crafted Country twang and a dream, dropped her debut eponymous album, Taylor Swift. Yesterday, Taylor Swift managed to achieve the impossible and change the seasons from fall to summer, by snagging her 10th number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. An achievement that’s anything but cruel.
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Taylor’s history-making The Eras Tour spans the last seventeen years of her career, taking her to a level of stardom never quite seen before. For the past few years she has continuously set records, broken records, replaced herself on charts, and released a steady stream of new music (2016 was the last year she didn’t drop new music. Yes, her cover of Earth Wind and Fire’s September for Spotify in 2018 counts.) Every week it seems like she is setting new precedents in the music industry. This week’s example? Going number one with a single from an album released over four years ago.
“Cruel Summer,” the second track from 2019’s Lover and according to Jack Antonoff, his and Swift’s favorite song off the album, solidified the latter’s spot on the list of eleven artists with the most number one songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her ten tracks go back as far as 2012’s Red, showing just how much she has ruled the airwaves in the last decade. So we wanted to dive into them and see what made them special and why they deserve that number one spot.
1. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”
The lead single from Swift’s fourth album Red was Taylor’s first number one on the chart. Other songs had come close, with “You Belong With Me” peaking at number two, but her first Pop single was the first to break through. The song debuted on the chart at number 72, but went to number one in its second week, foreshadowing the success she’d find with her Pop career. The rousing anthem stayed at the top of the chart for three weeks.
2. “Shake It Off”
Taylor said goodbye to Country music with her fifth album, 1989. A risky move that paid off from day one. “Shake It Off” debuted at number one on the Hot 100 chart, launching her into a new era musically (she’s a Pop Princess now!), personally (she lives in New York now!), and physically (she has short hair and side bangs now!). 1989 (Taylor’s Version), her fourth re-recorded album, drops on Friday, and with it comes a new version of the hit song. “Shake It Off” set the tone for her Pop career, loudly and proudly stating that she was going to do what she wanted to do and take risks and shake, shake, shake the rest off and it paved the way for more of its sister tracks to top the charts. “Shake It Off” held the number one slot for four weeks.
3. “Blank Space”
The Hot 100 chart had a blank space at number one, and with a catchy pen click, Taylor wrote its name there three weeks after its release. “Blank Space” became a fan favorite from 1989, and has remained one nine years on. The tongue-in-cheek, self-awareness of the song was reminiscent of past Swift tracks, but its message rang sharper and louder than before. There was a confidence behind “Blank Space” that set it apart from, say, “Mean,” another track that addressed the media and the public’s perception of her. Where she was wistful and hopeful in the past, she was now assertive and loud. “Blank Space” stayed at number one for four weeks.
4. “Bad Blood feat. Kendrick Lamar”
While technically the third track from 1989 to top the charts, this version of “Bad Blood” did not appear on the album. Rapper (and one of Taylor’s favorite artists) Kendrick Lamar joined Swift for the single version of the song, eclipsing the original. “Bad Blood” often lands on the lower end of lists ranking her songs. Not because it’s bad, but because 1989 is such a strong album and something has to go at the bottom of a ranking. However, this remix captured the hype that the other 1989 singles did, and kept it. Attend a show on The Eras Tour or watch videos of “Bad Blood” performances from the reputation Tour and you’ll hear the crowd respond with Kendrick’s “you forgive you forget but you never let it go” to Taylor’s “if you live like that, you live with ghosts.” While there is currently no sign of a re-recorded version of the track, it’s not too late, Taylor, if you’re reading this, 2023 deserves to experience “these beats of a dark heart use basslines to replace you,” too. “Bad Blood” stayed at number one for one week.
5. “Look What You Made Me Do”
After essentially disappearing for a year, Taylor wiped all of her social media clean and replaced it with a video of a snake, then dropped “Look What You Made Me Do.” Ask any Swiftie from that time about August 23, 2017, and they will get a glazed look in their eyes, like old Rose reminiscing about her time on the Titanic, and they will tell you a tale of confusion, excitement, horror, and curiosity. “Look What You Made Me Do” was a comeback to end all comebacks, and the way it was released, the iconic video that accompanied it, and the return of her Pop sound is what launched it to number one after its first full week of tracking and stayed there for three weeks.
6. “Cardigan”
After “Look What You Made Me Do,” it would take three years and two more albums for Taylor to snag the number one spot on the Hot 100 chart. While the four singles from Lover came close, none of them hit the milestone. When Taylor surprise dropped folklore in the summer of 2020, “cardigan” was the first single from the album, dropping simultaneously. The album marked another genre shift for Taylor, as well as a new collaborative partner in Aaron Dessner of The National. Folklore expanded her fanbase in a way that hadn’t been seen since 1989, six years prior, and once again showed that Swift isn’t a one or two-trick pony but a dynamic artist still capable of surprising fans and critics and growing her craft eight albums into her career. While “cardigan” debuted at number one on the Hot 100 chart, folklore debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, making Taylor the first artist to debut on the charts in the same week. “Cardigan” stayed at number one for one week.
7. “Willow”
For a lot of reasons, 2020 feels like a fever dream, but one of the reasons is Taylor Swift dropping two surprise albums within five months of each other. Evermore, the sister album to folklore, arrived in December just in time for Swift’s 31st birthday. Once again she chose to drop the lead single in tandem with the album instead of ahead of it, and once again both the album and single opened at number one on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 charts. This made her the first artist to do this twice, and it wasn’t the last time. Evermore continued her collaboration with Aaron Dessner, solidifying her appeal to a more “indie” focused crowd. Her ninth album also marked the shift in Taylor’s output, hinting that an album every other year might not be the path going forward and anything is possible. Like its sister single, “Willow” stayed at number one for one week.
8. “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (From The Vault) (Taylor’s Version)”
Up until “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (From The Vault) (Taylor’s Version)” hit the Hot 100 chart in November of 2021, all of Taylor’s other number ones had been singles. They were also all under five minutes long. For years, the myth and legend of a ten-minute version of fan-favorite Red track “All Too Well” plagued the Taylor Swift fandom. She had alluded to its existence in interviews, causing fans to beg at every chance possible for her to release it. She claimed to have lost it, but any fan of Taylor knows losing something is uncharacteristic, so fans were delighted but not entirely surprised when the ten-minute version appeared on the track listing for Red (Taylor’s Version). It is the longest number one in history, something that only Taylor Swift and her fans could achieve. The actual singles for the album, “I Bet You Think About Me” and “Message In A Bottle,” made it to number 22 and number 45, respectively. Both versions of “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” showcase her ability to freeze time and whittle formative moments that feel like lifetimes into just a few fleeting minutes. They house some of Swift’s best lyrics (“Then you call me up again just to break me like a promise, so casually cruel in the name of being honest” and “You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath” for example) and deliver powerful performances as recordings and live. The success of the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” is a perfect example of truly just how one of a kind, not even once in a generation, Taylor Swift truly is.
9. “Anti-Hero”
Midnights, Taylor’s tenth album, dropped in October of 2022 and once again didn’t have a lead single. The first single, “Anti-Hero,” was released simultaneously with the album like she did with folklore, evermore, and Red (Taylor’s Version). At a place in her career where she can let her work speak for itself and let her name alone drive sales without promotion, “Anti-Hero” was the perfect first single for Midnights. Taylor has called it her most vulnerable song, as it dives deep into her greatest fears and insecurities and lays them all out on the table, exposed and waiting. The darkness of sentiments like “I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money” and “I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror” are delivered to the listener in an irresistibly synth-pop bow, making the pill something you haven’t realized you’ve swallowed until the next song starts. It has the same self-awareness that “Blank Space” does, combined with the vulnerability of “All Too Well,” crafting the perfect combination for a number one hit. Midnights and “Anti-Hero” marked the third time Swift simultaneously topped the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100. “Anti-Hero” stayed at the top for eight weeks.
10. “Cruel Summer”
A masterclass in disrupting industry standards, Taylor once again proved that she has earned enough trust with fans and critics that she can do whatever she wants, even if it's outside the norm, and it will be well received. As the first full song performed on The Eras Tour, and the first bridge screamed on tour, “Cruel Summer” re-entered the public consciousness four years after its release. While a fan favorite like “All Too Well,” “Cruel Summer” was never a single from Lover, much to fans’ shock. It became the song of the summer as she played it over 50 times across the United States from March through August on The Eras Tour, and through sheer enthusiasm and will alone, fans convinced Taylor to give the song its time in the sun. She officially released it as a single in June of 2023, letting it build hype before it finally reached number one after the release of the live version from The Eras Tour. This is the fifth-longest amount of time between a song’s release and its appearance at number one on the Hot 100 chart at four years, one month, and three weeks. It’s the first number one in 57 years to have “summer” in the title and the first ever to have the word “cruel” in the title. Guess you really do have to be cruel to be kind (which peaked at 22.)
Taylor’s next single will likely be released on October 27 alongside her fourth re-recorded album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version). It’s almost expected that she will once again replace herself at the top of the charts, adding another number-one hit to the list and raising her higher on the list of Billboard Hot 100 greats. And as fans, all we can do is smile, because she’s a mastermind.
Featured Image Photo Credit: John Medina/Getty Images
