Her follow-up, 1989, was even more unprecedented. It was, in effect, a 100 percent, pure-pop album with virtually zero elements of the country twang that made her a star. The album after that, Reputation, ventured even further into electro-pop, with distorted vocals and grimy, club-ready beats. The fact that this was the same artist who delivered the bluegrass anthem “Mean” in 2010 is astounding.

Lover, Swift’s most recent, is an amalgamation of her discography. In many ways, it’s a return to form, with several stripped-down tunes and a few glossy pop gems mixed in. The record is further proof Swift is the decade’s biggest sonic shape-shifter—listening to her instincts, not the radio, and creating incredibly compelling pop music as a result.

Perhaps the only artist who rivals her on this metric is Rihanna, whose 2010s catalog defies genre, as well. But her songs, in my opinion, were often reactions to the top 40 landscape. When radio went dance-pop, so did she. When it pivoted to tropical house, she followed suit. Swift, however, almost made her music in a vacuum—that’s what I think, at least.

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