With TS12 (The Life Of A Showgirl) on its way, I thought I'd try something out....not simply ranking each album, but ranking them with a tier system. Here's how I did it; going through each album I sorted each song into 5 tiers. Tier 1 is worth 10pts, tier 2 is 7pts, tier 3 is 4pts, tier 4 is 2pts and tier 5 is 0pts. To come up with a score, I take the percentage of how many tracks are in that tier and multiply it by that point value. So with that being said, if an album scores a 5 or 6, its not like I'm ranking it a 5/10.
May seem complicated, but seemed like a good value for this tier ranking.
"Taylor Swift" (debut)
1 - Cold As You, Should've Said No, Mary's Song, Our Song (4) 28.571%
2 - Tim McGraw, Teardrops On My Guitar, Tied Together with a smile, (3) 21.429%
3 - Picture To Burn, The Outside, Invisible, (3) 21.429%
4- A Place In This World, I'm Only Me When I'm With You, (2) 14.286%
5- Stay Beautiful, A Perfectly Good Heart (2) 14.286%
Score: 5.5
A solid first album overall, but as you see a lot of tracks scattered across the middle tiers.
"Fearless"
1- Love Story, White Horse, You Belong With Me, Tell Me Why, The Way I Loved You, The Other Side Of The Door, You All Over Me, Mr Perfectly Fine, Bye Bye Baby (10) 38.46%
2- Fifteen, You're Not Sorry, Forever & Always, The Best Day, Come In With The Rain, That's When (6) 23.07%
3- Hey Stephen, Breathe, Jump Then Fall, Forever & Always (Piano), Superstar, We Were Happy, Don't You (7) 26.92%
4- Change, Untouchable (2) 7.69%
5- Today Was A Fairytale (1) 3.84%
Score: 6.69
I questioned whether to go with the original or the re-record. For Fearless I decided to go with Taylor's Version. That will vary from album to album. I feel like this system makes things equal for longer and shorter albums, but here we see an increase compared to debut.
"Speak Now"
1- Mine, Sparks Fly, Back To December, Dear John, Never Grow Up, Enchanted, Haunted, Last Kiss, Long Live, I Can See You, Timeless (11) 50%
2- Mean, The Story Of Us, Better Than Revenge, Castles Crumbling, Foolish One (5) 22.72%
3- Innocent, Ours, Electric Touch, When Emma Falls In Love (4) 18.18%
4- Speak Now (1) 4.54%
5- Superman (1) 4.54%
Score: 7.41
Once again I decided to use Taylor's Version for Speak Now. With this album, as you can see it was quite top heavy, with half the tracks landing in the top tier.
"Red"
1- State Of Grace, Red, Treacherous, I Knew You Were Trouble, All Too Well, I Almost Do, Holy Ground, The Lucky One, Everything Has Changed, Begin Again, The Moment I Knew, Come Back...Be Here, State Of Grace (Acoustic), Ronan, Better Man, Nothing New, I Bet You Think About Me, All Too Well (10 minute version) (18) 60%
2- We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, The Last Time, Sad Beautiful Tragic, Babe, Forever Winter, The Very First Night (6) 20%
3- 22, Starlight, Girl At Home, Message In A Bottle, Run (5) 16.67%
4- Stay Stay Stay (1) 3.33%
5- (0)
Score: 8.13
When it came to Red, I decided to use the original version (though I based Girl At Home off of Taylor's Version, along with the vault obviously). Red is very tier 1 heavy, but then an even mix between tiers 2 and 3 that knock it down just a bit behind other albums (as you'll see later on in this post).
"1989"
1- Blank Space, Style, Out Of The Woods, Wildest Dreams, This Love, I Know Places, Clean, Wonderland, You Are In Love, New Romantics, Now That We Don't Talk, Is It Over Now?, Bad Blood ft/ Kendrick Lamar (13) 59.09%
2- Welcome To New York, All You Had To Do Was Stay, Bad Blood, How You Get The Girl, Slut!, Say Don't Go (6) 27.27%
3- Shake It Off, I Wish You Would (2) 9.09%
4- Suburban Legends (1) 4.54%
5- (0)
Score: 8.27
For 1989, I used the original version for the standard album. An incredibly strong album, with pretty much every track landing in the top 2 tiers. Some may scoff at Welcome To NY and Bad Blood being that high, but on a good day they just blend in with 1989.
"reputation"
1- I Did Something Bad, Don't Blame Me, Delicate, Getaway Car, Dancing With Our Hands Tied, Dress, Call It What You Want, New Year's Day (8) 53.33%
2- Ready For It?, King Of My Heart (2) 13.33%
3- Look What You Made Me Do, Gorgeous, So It Goes... (3) 20%
4- End Game (1) 6.66%
5- This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (1) 6.66%
Score: 7.19
Reputation is very tier 1 heavy, with a mixture thereafter. While not among the top of her discography, its an important album nonetheless. It showed the directional shift she could take even within the pop genre from 1989 to reputation.
"Lover"
1- Cruel Summer, Lover, The Archer, Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, Cornelia Street, Death By A Thousand Cuts, Soon You'll Get Better, False God, Daylight (9) 50%
2- The Man, I Think He Knows, Paper Rings, Afterglow (4) 22.22%
3- I Forgot That You Existed (1) 5.56%
4- You Need To Calm Down, Me! (2) 11.11%
5- London Boy, It's Nice To Have A Friend (2) 11.11%
Score: 6.99
A step down from reputation, but Lover still contains several of Taylor's top songs. That becomes more clear when you hear them acoustically during her Lover from Paris set.
"folklore"
1- the 1, cardigan, the last great american dynasty, exile, my tears ricochet, seven, august, mad woman, betty, peace, the lakes (11) 64.71%
2- mirrorball, this is me trying, illicit affairs, invisible string, epiphany (5) 29.41%
3- hoax (1) 5.88%
4- (0)
5- (0)
Score: 8.77
What is there to say about the gem that is folklore? Released during a rather dark time amidst covid, folklore saw Taylor go in another directional change. Its no surprise that folklore is pretty much entirely in either tier 1 and 2.
"evermore"
1- champagne problems, gold rush, 'tis the damn season, tolerate it, coney island, ivy, cowboy like me, marjorie, right where you left me (10) 58.82%
2- willow, no body no crime, happiness, it's time to go (4) 23.53%
3- long story short, closure (2) 11.76%
4- dorothea (1) 5.88%
5- (0)
Score: 8.12
Before this project I always thought of myself as more of an evermore stan, but here it is over half a point behind folklore. I'd say I enjoy a majority of evermore's tier 1 tracks than folklore's, but there is more of a mix once you get past tier 1.
"Midnights"
1- Lavender Haze, Maroon, Anti-hero, You're On Your Own Kid, Bejeweled, Karma, Mastermind, Glitch, Would've Could've Should've, Dear Reader, Hits Different, You're Losing Me (12) 50%
2- Midnight Rain, Vigilante Shit, Sweet Nothing, The Great War, Bigger Than The Whole Sky, High Infidelity, Snow On The Beach (More Lana), (7) 29.17%
3- Snow On the Beach, Labyrinth, Karma (Ice Spice) (3) 12.5%
4- Question...?, Paris (2) 8.33%
5- (0)
Score: 7.71
Not just tier 1, but the strength of Midnight's 2nd tier is enough to make it a top 5 album. When it came to Midnight, I of course used the 3am tracks, along with the other bonus material (including You're Losing Me and Hits Different) which further boosted Midnights.
"The Tortured Poets Department"
1- So Long London, But Daddy I Love Him, Guilty As Sin, Whose Afraid Of Little Old Me, loml, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, Clara Bow, The Black Dog, imgonnagetyouback, How Did It End?, So High School, The Prophecy, Peter, The Bolter (15) 48.39%
2- My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys, Down Bad, Florida!!!, The Albatross, Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, thanK you aIMee, I Look In Peoples Windows, Cassandra, The Manuscript (9) 29.03%
3- Fortnight, The Tortured Poets Department, Fresh Out The Slammer, I Hate It Here (4) 12.9%
4- I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can), The Alchemy, Robin (3) 9.68%
5- (0)
Score: 7.56
TTPD is a special kind of album, even beyond being a double album. You can tell it was cathartic for Taylor (as she wrote this during a turbulent time on tour). The variance among the tracks weights it down a bit, but still a solid album. I broke them down separately, and the 1st half (TTPD) got a 7.31 (which would put it around 7th), and The Anthology got a 7.87 (good for 5th).
So the rankings go as follows:
folklore - 8.77
1989 - 8.27
Red - 8.13
evermore - 8.12
Midnights - 7.71
The Tortured Poets Department - 7.56
Speak Now - 7.41
Reputation - 7.19
Lover - 6.99
Fearless - 6.69
Debut - 5.50
