As we all know, Taylor Swift released her first, self-titled album at the age of 16 on October 24th in 2006.

The album is distinctly more country-flavored than her later music and attentive listeners will notice a very real and totally authentic rural accent which mysteriously disappeared as early as her 2nd album, Fearless.

The debut album didn’t have any massive hits, it was before her breakthrough, but its most popular songs are definitely Our Song (which has the most 2000s video ever made, she looks like an actual barbie doll) and the charmingly corny Teardrops On My Guitar. While with her later albums, I usually like about 90% of songs (except Reputation but we don’t talk about that), the debut album is 50/50 for me. If you want my personal hipster “I-liked-Taylor-Swift-before-she-was-cool” songs, it’s definitely Picture To Burn and probably I’m Only Me When I’m With You.

Taylor Swift has never been an outstanding vocalist, and this was especially true when 15/16-year-old Taylor recorded the debut album. Her voice is kinda thin and you can hear her struggling to hit higher notes, but it makes it all the more endearing. The album doesn’t have nearly the same mainstream appeal that her later albums had, but it was all the more authentic and the roots of what made her so popular, her ability to put her feelings on paper and make her audience relate to her, are already there.

To love Taylor Swift, the album, you kinda already have to love Taylor Swift, the singer. I hope she does remake it, she’s sung a bunch of the songs from it as bonus songs on the current eras tour so it’s not like she’s trying to sweep it under the rug.

Fun Fact 1: There exists an original version of Picture To Burn where instead of “So go and tell your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy, that’s fine, you won’t mind if I say…” she sings “that’s fine, I’ll tell mine you’re gay.” If you read the comments, you’ll find a lot of gay Swifties asking her to bring that version back.

Fun Fact 2: Drew, the guy who she wrote Teardrops On My Guitar about, went on to be arrested for child abuse a couple years later. Dodged a bullet there, Taytay!