hello, and welcome back to yet another blog post that no one asked for!!! today i'm ranking the taylor swift albums, which would be a fairly short blog post if it weren't for the fact that i did Entirely Too Much™ to calculate these rankings. essentially, what we're doing here is ranking every song of a given track number across all 8 albums - and then at the end, averaging all of those rankings to see which album is my favorite from a ~scientific~ standpoint.

(disclaimer for my fellow data ppl: i know this isn't actually like..... good data science, but we're just going to ignore the methodology flaws here.)
 

track 1
1. state of grace
2. fearless
3. ... ready for it?
4. the 1
5. mine
6. i forgot that you existed
7. tim mcgraw
8. welcome to new york

track 2
1. blank space
2. cruel summer
3. red
4. cardigan
5. sparks fly
6. picture to burn
7. end game
8. fifteen

track 3
1. i did something bad
2. style
3. back to december
4. the last great american dynasty
5. treacherous
6. lover
7. love story
8. teardrops on my guitar

track 4
1. i knew you were trouble
2. don't blame me
3. exile
4. the man
5. out of the woods
6. place in this world
7. hey stephen
8. speak now

track 5
1. all too well
2. all you had to do was stay
3. white horse
4. dear john
5. cold as you
6. delicate
7. my tears ricochet
8. the archer

track 6
1. look what you made me do
2. i think he knows
3. mean
4. shake it off
5. 22
6. mirrorball
7. you belong with me
8. the outside

track 7
1. miss americana and the heartbreak prince
2. the story of us
3. so it goes...
4. breathe
5. i almost do
6. i wish you would
7. seven
8. tied together with a smile

track 8
1. august
2. we are never ever getting back together
3. tell me why
4. paper rings
5. gorgeous
6. bad blood
7. never grow up
8. stay beautiful

track 9
1. should've said no
2. getaway car
3. you're not sorry
4. wildest dreams
5. enchanted
6. cornelia street
7. this is me trying
8. stay stay stay

track 10
1. illicit affairs
2. the way i loved you
3. better than revenge
4. death by a thousand cuts
5. how you get the girl
6. the last time
7. king of my heart
8. mary's song (oh my my)

track 11
1. dancing with our hands tied
2. forever and always
3. holy ground
4. our song
5. invisible string
6. this love
7. london boy
8. innocent

track 12
1. mad woman
2. haunted
3. i know places
4. dress
5. sad beautiful tragic
6. i'm only me when i'm with you
7. soon you'll get better
8. the best day

track 13
1. false god
2. last kiss
3. clean
4. this is why we can't have nice things
5. invisible
6. epiphany
7. the lucky one
8. change

track 14
1. wonderland
2. betty
3. call it what you want
4. you need to calm down
5. long live
6. jump then fall
7. everything has changed
8. a perfectly good heart

track 15
1. you are in love
2. new year's day
3. ours
4. starlight
5. peace
6. afterglow
7. untouchable

track 16
1. new romantics
2. begin again
3. hoax
4. forever and always (piano version)
5. if this was a movie
6. me!

aaaand i stopped here because there are only 4 track 17s and it felt like that would throw off the math a lil too much.

anyways. onto the good stuff.

taylor's mathematically-derived taylor swift album ranking
1. reputation (average song rank: 3.4)
2. 1989 (average song rank: 3.63)
3. red (average song rank: 4.06)
4. folklore (average song rank: 4.13)
5. speak now (average song rank: 4.38)
6. lover (average song rank: 4.63)
7. fearless (average song rank: 5.06)
8. debut (average song rank: 6.23)

and bonus stats!

the album with the smallest standard deviation in rankings was speak now and the one with the largest was fearless.

there were two albums with no #8 rankings: reputation and folklore. there were two with no #1: fearless and speak now.
(tbh i forgot dwoht and forever and always are the same track number and was gutted about not being able to rank it #1 bc it's in my overall top 10)

1989 had the most #1 rankings. the album was carried on that one almost entirely by its bonus tracks, which are all fucking bangers.

as always, pls feel free to pick a fight with me in the comments. i live for taylor swift discourse and it would be a great way for me to pretend like i don't have law school finals in like 10 days.