Red by Taylor Swift

Red, Taylor Swift's fourth album, came out on Big Machine on October 22, 2012, and it's a breakup record through and through, following the fallout of a failed relationship through all its mixed-up feelings. To get those feelings across, Swift went looking past the country pop of her earlier albums, producing alongside Nathan Chapman, Max Martin, Shellback and others.

The result is mostly pop with rock, folk and country threads, acoustic guitars sharing space with synths and drum machines, and critics argued over whether it was still country at all. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" topped the Hot 100 and "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached number two; the album spent seven weeks at number one and was nominated for Album of the Year. Critics now call it career-defining, and the ten-minute "All Too Well" from the 2021 re-recording, Red (Taylor's Version), is the take the countdowns have latched onto.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.