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Love Taylor Swift? 5 Artists You’ll Also Enjoy

ByColin

Why Taylor Swift Fans Should Explore Other Genres

Taylor Swift’s music is all about storytelling. Whether it’s the stark intimacy of Folklore, the dramatic arcs of Reputation, or the country-pop sparkle of her early albums, she’s built a career on weaving personal experience into songs that feel both specific and universal.

But what if you’re craving that same mix of narrative, vulnerability, and craft from other genres? Good news: Taylor’s artistic DNA runs deeper than pop or country. Across rock, jazz, classical, hip hop, and R&B, there are artists who bring the same emotional punch and creative drive — just from very different angles.

Here are five artists from other genres that Swifties will find plenty to love in.

1. Joni Mitchell: A Folk Legend for Taylor Swift Fans Who Love Storytelling

Joni is the one that comes immediately to a lot of people’s minds. While Taylor may not cite her constantly, the lineage is obvious: confessional songwriting, turning breakups into art, mixing the everyday with the mythic. Joni was doing it in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and her albums still feel raw and timeless today.

Joni could go big and experimental (Hejira, The Hissing of Summer Lawns), but her superpower was always putting her life into songs with a mix of honesty, wit, and poetry. Listening to Blue feels like finding the ancestor of Red and Folklore.

For Fans Of: Red, Folklore, heartbreak road trips, and late-night journaling sessions.

Start With These Tracks:

  • A Case of You
  • Both Sides Now
  • River

2. Esperanza Spalding: A Jazz Innovator for Swifties Seeking Musical Depth

If you’ve ever loved Taylor’s experimental streak (like her leap into indie-folk with Aaron Dessner), you’ll vibe with Esperanza Spalding.

She’s a jazz bassist, singer, and composer who refuses to be pinned down. Like Taylor, she reinvents herself constantly. One album might be playful and pop-tinged, the next an intricate, sprawling concept record. What ties it all together is her narrative approach. Even when she’s improvising or scatting, it feels like she’s telling a story.

Spalding brings vulnerability too, and not just love and heartbreak, but questions about identity, creativity, and selfhood.

For Fans Of: 1989, Folklore, polished yet adventurous storytelling woven into every note.

Start With These Tracks:

  • I Know You Know
  • Radio Song
  • Earth to Heaven

3. Caroline Shaw: Classical Experimentation for Fans of Taylor’s Bold Turns

This is the wildcard pick, but stay with me because if you’ve connected with Taylor’s quieter, more atmospheric writing (Folklore and Evermore), Caroline Shaw will blow your mind.

Shaw is a composer, singer, and violinist who moves between classical and experimental music, but always with a deep emotional pull. Her music is melodic and often haunting, but much more approachable than what people usually imagine when they hear “contemporary classical.”

She also shares Taylor’s collaborative streak. Shaw has worked with Kanye West (before he went off the deep end), Roomful of Teeth, and a few indie bands, always finding new ways to fold her voice into the mix. It’s the same restless creativity Swift brings when she shifts producers, genres, or album aesthetics.

For Fans Of: Folklore, Evermore, misty mornings, and songs that feel like they belong in a film soundtrack.

Start With These Tracks:

  • Partita for 8 Voices (with Roomful of Teeth)
  • And So (from Orange with Attacca Quartet)
  • Other Song (with Sō Percussion)

4. Megan Thee Stallion: Hip Hop Power for Swift Fans Who Love Reinvention

Now for a total pivot: Megan Thee Stallion may seem far from Taylor’s sonic world, but dig deeper and the parallels pop out.

Both artists are masters of persona. Taylor’s had her phases like the country sweetheart, the pop superstar, the cottagecore poet. Megan does something similar in hip hop, playing with confidence, vulnerability, and narrative arcs. She’s just louder and raunchier about it.

And like Taylor, Megan’s music is autobiographical at heart. Beneath the swagger, she writes about loss, resilience, and carving out her own space in a hostile industry. She’s a survivor telling her story through bangers and ballads alike.

For Fans Of: Reputation, Midnights, bold eyeliner, revenge playlists.

Start With These Tracks:

  • Savage (Remix feat. Beyoncé)
  • Thot Shit
  • Cobra

5. SZA: R&B Emotion and Vulnerability Taylor Swift Fans Will Recognize

SZA is probably the closest contemporary parallel to Taylor. She writes songs like diary entries that are messy and funny, and sometimes heartbreaking. In the process she’s helped define the sound of Alternative R&B. Ctrl is basically an R&B Red, with love, betrayal, and self-discovery all tangled up.

Her album SOS takes that even further, sprawling across genres the way 1989 or Midnights do, but still tied together by her voice and vulnerability. Listening to SZA feels like listening to Taylor’s interior monologue, just with a different musical palette.

Both artists understand that part of growing up is learning how to narrate your own chaos and turning it into art that millions of people see themselves in.

For Fans Of: Red, Midnights, messy breakups, and late-night text drafts you never send.

Start With These Tracks:

  • Love Galore (feat. Travis Scott)
  • Drew Barrymore
  • Kill Bill

Discovering New Artists Like Taylor Swift

One of the best things about being a Taylor Swift fan is that she opens the door to so many other artists, if you’ve got a curious enough ear to explore. She’s not just a pop star, she’s part of a much bigger tradition of musicians across genres who use music to tell stories, process emotions, and reinvent themselves.

So cue up these tracks, grab your headphones, and get ready to fall in love with five artists who are very different from Taylor, and yet feel like they’ve been part of her musical family all along.

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