An Unprecedented Look at What Made Taylor Swift a Global Phenomenon: Her Music

Taylor Swift: Album by Album
By Kase Wickman, Joanna Weiss, Moira McAvoy ∙ October 7, 2025

MINNEAPOLIS, July 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Taylor Swift is a global phenomenon—a megastar who has sold millions of albums, filled stadiums worldwide, and built an army of devoted fans. Yet, at the heart of it all, she remains, first and foremost, a songwriter.

Available October 7, 2025, Taylor Swift: Album by Album offers an in-depth exploration of Swift's sprawling catalog of songs. Cultural critics and authors Kase Wickman, Joanna Weiss, and Moira McAvoy showcase her evolution as a songwriter—from her country roots to pop superstardom—while examining the inspirations and artistry behind her lyrics.

Featuring fresh insights from all eleven studio albums—from Taylor Swift to The Tortured Poets Department—Taylor Swift: Album by Album explores her life, lyrics, and music like nothing else before it. This book includes several chapters on the Taylor's Version albums released to date, with panel discussions from noted Swift scholars accompanied by vibrant photography that captures Swift in every era, from an aspiring country musician to the dominant global force she is today. It traces the stunning commercial and financial success that enabled Swift to recently buy back her original masters.

Swift's artistry, awards, and accolades are vast—from being the youngest artist with a No. 1 song on the Hot Country chart to receiving Billboard's first-ever Woman of the Decade award. Yet, at the core of it all, her success is rooted in her music. This book traces her megahits and surprise vault tracks, examines her genre-defying versatility, deciphers the Easter eggs woven into her lyrics, and marvels at the many bridges and hooks. Each chapter covers one of Swift's albums in chronological order, with a special 'bridge' section in the middle—Taylor-style—highlighting her groundbreaking decision to reclaim her master recordings on her own terms.

More than just a retrospective, Taylor Swift: Album by Album is an unparalleled look at Swift's music and the impact it has had on both the industry and her devoted fans. Whether you're a longtime Swiftie or new to her world, this book offers a deeper understanding of how and why her artistry continues to inspire audiences around the globe.

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Book Specs
Publishing October 7, 2025 ∙ Hardcover, 192 pages, 175 images ∙ $30 USD, $40 CAN ∙ ISBN: 9780760397497

About the Authors
KASE WICKMAN is a culture journalist, editor, and author. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and New York Magazine, among other publications. She is the culture & society reporter at Vanity Fair, and her first book, BRING IT ON: The Complete Story of the Cheerleading Movie That Changed, Like, Everything (No, Seriously), was published in 2022 by Chicago Review Press.

JOANNA WEISS is a Boston-based writer and editor whose work has appeared in Politico, The Atlantic, Slate, The Boston Globe, The Economist, and the book Nasty Women and Bad Hombres: Gender and Race in the 2016 Presidential Election. Her Boston Magazine story, "For Those Moms About to Rock," about the rock band she formed with four working mom friends during the pandemic, has been optioned for film, with a comedy in development at 20th Century Studios.

MOIRA MCAVOY lives, writes, and markets shows in Washington, D.C. A founding editor of Bad For You, McAvoy has also served on the editorial staff of NANO Fiction and The Rappahannock Review, and her work can be found in The Rumpus, The Financial Diet, wig-wag, and elsewhere. When not attending or promoting concerts, Moira is likely listening to Taylor's music and testing theories about it – she is currently within the top 500 all-time global listeners for five different Swift tracks (and counting).

Motorbooks is an imprint of The Quarto Group

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SOURCE The Quarto Group