Fearless (Taylor’s Version): The Rankdown (Finished)

[taylor]

Placement in original Fearless rankdown: #4 of 19


Points: 527
Average: 10
Std. Dev.: 6.15

lady𝓐fan - 1
Tim - 2
someguy - 2
†ealsünset - 3
ethanhunt - 4
joshtheking - 4
sapphire - 5
born - 5
#brayden - 6
SoMuchToSay - 6
samo🦕 - 7
fearlessarrow - 8
reputainbow - 8
SabrinaFan - 8
twigs - 8
🌺CountryLineDancer - 9
Mayman - 9
neverduplicated - 10
wyckyd - 10
schnetzka - 11
jaden - 12
Mylo13 💜 - 12
MOWE - 13
bboat11 - 14
taylor - 14
Hamed 🔪♥️ - 15
GrinningLikeADevil - 16
khan - 20
nickd - 21
austin - 23
.indulgecountry - 24

Audience: Troublemaker imhappy259 Fire

SPOILER: Click to show

{songs remaining}
fearless (taylor’s version)
love story (taylor’s version)
you belong with me (taylor’s version)
forever & always (taylor’s version)

[taylor]

And here comes the something cool!



Placement in original Fearless rankdown: #5 of 19


Points: 527
Average: 10
Std. Dev.: 6.02

fearlessarrow - 1
GrinningLikeADevil - 2
born - 2
austin - 3
#brayden - 4
Mayman - 4
samo🦕 - 4
nickd - 5
reputainbow - 5
bboat11 - 6
Hamed 🔪♥️ - 6
†ealsünset - 6
MOWE - 7
lady𝓐fan - 8
someguy - 8
joshtheking - 9
sapphire - 10
Tim - 10
.indulgecountry - 10
SoMuchToSay - 11
jaden - 13
taylor - 15
neverduplicated - 16
🌺CountryLineDancer - 17
SabrinaFan - 17
twigs - 17
Mylo13 💜 - 18
wyckyd - 18
khan - 19
schnetzka - 19
ethanhunt - 20

Audience: Troublemaker imhappy259 Fire

SPOILER: Click to show

{songs remaining}
fearless (taylor’s version)
love story (taylor’s version)
you belong with me (taylor’s version)

[taylor]

That’s right! Right as we are about to enter the Top 3, we have a tie! Both “White Horse” and “Forever & Always” stood on each other’s necks the entire way through the competition! I believe fearlessarrow went ahead and used the standard deviation as the tiebreaker, therefore allowing F&A to climb up to #4.

I vastly prefer the piano version, but this improved recording of the standard F&A is INCREDIBLE. I was obsessed when it first re-released.

[taylor]

Dec 10, 2022 20:45:00 GMT -5 nickd said:

Dec 10, 2022 20:30:43 GMT -5 born said:

So we finally reached the top 10! *proceeds to recap everything before*

Anyways, I'm gonna make a controversial prediction and say YBWM will be #1 ahead of LS.

[taylor]

Placement in original Fearless rankdown: #1 of 19


Points: 669
Average: 5.42
Std. Dev.: 6.48

Tim - 1
#brayden - 1
Hamed 🔪♥️ - 1
joshtheking - 1
neverduplicated - 1
reputainbow - 1
SabrinaFan - 1
samo🦕 - 1
schnetzka - 1
†ealsünset - 1
twigs - 1
🌺CountryLineDancer - 2
.indulgecountry - 2
SoMuchToSay - 2
Mayman - 2
fearlessarrow - 3
MOWE - 3
sapphire - 4
taylor - 4
GrinningLikeADevil - 4
born - 4
khan - 4
wyckyd - 6
lady𝓐fan - 7
austin - 9
nickd - 9
bboat11 - 12
jaden - 16
ethanhunt - 19
someguy - 19
Mylo13 💜 - 26

Audience: Troublemaker imhappy259 Fire

[taylor]

Mylo13 💜 lmao okay

Thanks to that display of utter tastelessness, the winner of the original Fearless rankdown and the first re-recording we ever got to hear gets knocked all the way down to bronze, taking 11 #1s with it, out of 31 participants.

“Love Story” has ALWAYS been among my favorites and the nostalgia factor is strong. Which is probably why I cried when I first heard Taylor’s version. And then have kept it in rotation ever since. The crisper production shines best on this song, as we get to hear every detail now, whereas some things were drowned out by loudness back in 2008.

[taylor]

Pick your fighter! Are you…

#TeamFearlessTV
or
#TeamYouBelongWithMeTV

The winner will be revealed shortly!!!!

[taylor]

Placement in original Fearless rankdown: #3 of 19


Points: 681
Average: 5.03
Std. Dev.: 3.87

sapphire - 1
ethanhunt - 1
SoMuchToSay - 1
bboat11 - 2
fearlessarrow - 2
samo🦕 - 2
twigs - 2
wyckyd - 2
Tim - 3
🌺CountryLineDancer - 3
#brayden - 3
.indulgecountry - 3
jaden - 3
neverduplicated - 3
lady𝓐fan - 4
SabrinaFan - 4
austin - 5
taylor - 5
GrinningLikeADevil - 5
MOWE - 5
Mayman - 5
schnetzka - 5
someguy - 5
joshtheking - 6
Mylo13 💜 - 7
†ealsünset - 7
Hamed 🔪♥️ - 9
reputainbow - 10
nickd - 11
khan - 15
born - 17

---

Placement in original Fearless rankdown: #2 of 19


Points: 672
Average: 5.32
Std. Dev.: 4.72

🌺CountryLineDancer - 1
GrinningLikeADevil - 1
Mayman - 1
someguy - 1
jaden - 2
khan - 2
neverduplicated - 2
nickd - 2
reputainbow - 2
born - 3
joshtheking - 3
lady𝓐fan - 3
schnetzka - 3
Tim - 4
fearlessarrow - 4
SoMuchToSay - 4
bboat11 - 5
.indulgecountry - 5
SabrinaFan - 5
†ealsünset - 5
wyckyd - 5
sapphire - 6
samo🦕 - 6
austin - 8
taylor - 8
#brayden - 8
Hamed 🔪♥️ - 8
Mylo13 💜 - 8
twigs - 11
MOWE - 15
ethanhunt - 24

Audience: Troublemaker imhappy259 Fire

[taylor]

Well, there you have it! The title track and “Love Story” wound up flip-flopping around the stationary “You Belong with Me,” meaning “Fearless TV” is the winner of the Fearless (Taylor’s Version) rankdown! This is honestly not a win that I’m too entirely upset about; I can get behind this! 

Every song is iconic, especially in this Top 5, so it could’ve gone any way in the Top 3 and I would be happy. What a great set of tunes on this album!

[.indulgecountry]

Lol I would've never expected this outcome.

But I LOVE the title track and it's held up really well over time. Not mad at it.

[khan]

I know I put both really high but You Belong with Me being higher than Love Story is the happy surprise I never expected.

[Mayman]

Wow that's a shocking top 3, but here for it. The title track has grown on me a lot since the re-release so I'm fine with it winning. I'm even more shocked that Love Story moved down to #3, I expected it to be a runaway winner.

Thank you for hosting!!

[samo🦕]

not sure how You Belong With Me pulled ahead of Love Story this time when it's the one song on the album where I honestly think the TV is worse than the original (and when Love Story's TV is one of the biggest improvements imo) but I'm so happy we had one of the lesser-known singles win

[fearlessarrow]

Dec 11, 2022 22:54:45 GMT -5 taylor said:

That’s right! Right as we are about to enter the Top 3, we have a tie! Both “White Horse” and “Forever & Always” stood on each other’s necks the entire way through the competition! I believe fearlessarrow went ahead and used the standard deviation as the tiebreaker, therefore allowing F&A to climb up to #4.

I vastly prefer the piano version, but this improved recording of the standard F&A is INCREDIBLE. I was obsessed when it first re-released.

So the thing about "White Horse" and "Forever & Always" is that both songs had the same amount of #1s, #2s, AND #3s, it's a pretty crazy tie. I actually used the top rank for the tiebreaker so "Forever & Always" won with its three #4 ranks compared to two for "White Horse", but even if I had broken the tie by standard deviation, the results would be the same 

Dec 12, 2022 3:00:47 GMT -5 Mayman said:

Wow that's a shocking top 3, but here for it. The title track has grown on me a lot since the re-release so I'm fine with it winning. I'm even more shocked that Love Story moved down to #3, I expected it to be a runaway winner.

Thank you for hosting!!

Blame Mylo13 💜 for this one, he didn't succeed the last time around but he did this time and pretty much singlehandedly prevented a repeat win for "Love Story" (and pushed it out of the top 2) as he ranked "Fearless" at #7, "You Belong With Me" at #8, and "Love Story" at #26. The gap between #1 and #3 (so "Fearless" and "Love Story") was only 12 points, meaning that without his list "Love Story" would've won.

Dec 12, 2022 7:03:14 GMT -5 samo🦕 said:

not sure how You Belong With Me pulled ahead of Love Story this time when it's the one song on the album where I honestly think the TV is worse than the original (and when Love Story's TV is one of the biggest improvements imo) but I'm so happy we had one of the lesser-known singles win

I was also predicting "Love Story" to beat "You Belong With Me" too just because of that reason, I also felt that YBWM TV was worse than the original while most if not all the other tracks on Fearless TV were at least on par with the original. And this is also coming from someone who prefers "You Belong With Me" to "Love Story" in its original version. But then Mylo13 💜 happened... so I hope he's happy at least, lol. 

[schnetzka]

I am really surprised the title track took the crown. I've never really heard people talk about liking the song itself in the way people talked about "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me".

[samo🦕]

Dec 12, 2022 7:34:01 GMT -5 fearlessarrow said:

I was also predicting "Love Story" to beat "You Belong With Me" too just because of that reason, I also felt that YBWM TV was worse than the original while most if not all the other tracks on Fearless TV were at least on par with the original. And this is also coming from someone who prefers "You Belong With Me" to "Love Story" in its original version.

all of this!!! for me it's the opposite of the effect the re-recordings had on "Fifteen"; that song benefits so much from it actually sounding like an adult is singing it, where YBWM is way more believable coming from a teenager than a 30 year-old

[austin]

Dec 12, 2022 7:43:03 GMT -5 samo🦕 said:

Dec 12, 2022 7:34:01 GMT -5 fearlessarrow said:

I was also predicting "Love Story" to beat "You Belong With Me" too just because of that reason, I also felt that YBWM TV was worse than the original while most if not all the other tracks on Fearless TV were at least on par with the original. And this is also coming from someone who prefers "You Belong With Me" to "Love Story" in its original version.

all of this!!! for me it's the opposite of the effect the re-recordings had on "Fifteen"; that song benefits so much from it actually sounding like an adult is singing it, where YBWM is way more believable coming from a teenager than a 30 year-old

Yeah, this is so true. On the 2008 album, I prefer YBWM so much more to Fifteen, but the re-recording of Fifteen just hits way different coming from a 30 year old who has lived a little. It is the biggest glow-up, IMO.

[SabrinaFan]

Thank you so much for hosting fearlessarrow , born and taylor ! This was a lot of fun.

[joshtheking]

Well this was an exciting turn of events, even if my personal fav is Love Story. Thanks for hosting guys!

Also I lowballed Breathe wtf was I smoking

[fearlessarrow]

Hello~ We just wanted to thank everyone for participating in this rankdown and following along with the reveals! I hope you had fun as much as we did tracking the results and revealing the results. I feel like I say this every rankdown but rankdowns aren't possible without you, the participants, so thank you for making this possible as well! For me, seeing "The Other Side of the Door" do so much better than the original Fearless rankdown was truly a joy to see, and following the top 3 duke it out for #1 was also pretty exciting. They actually all had time at #1 ("You Belong With Me" only held it for one submission though).

As a parting gift, here's a recap of this rankdown and rankdown closeness!

Recap (in brackets are points):
1. Fearless (681) [Lowest SD]
2. You Belong With Me (672)
3. Love Story (669)
4. Forever & Always (527)
5. White Horse (527)
6. Fifteen (517)
7. The Way I Loved You (510)
8. Mr. Perfectly Fine (504)
9. You're Not Sorry (500)
10. Breathe (431)
11. The Other Side of the Door (426)
12. Hey Stephen (419)
13. Tell Me Why (405)
14. Today Was a Fairytale (383) [Highest SD]
15. The Best Day (382)
16. You All Over Me (364)
17. Forever & Always (Piano Version) (352)
18. Jump Then Fall (336)
19. Untouchable (331)
20. That's When (330)
21. Come in with the Rain (319)
22. Don't You (298)
23. Change (296)
24. Superstar (278)
25. Bye Bye Baby (226)
26. We Were Happy (198)

Rankdown Closeness:
1. Mayman - 2.846
2. fearlessarrow - 3.846
3. #brayden - 3.923
4. sapphire - 4.000
5. reputainbow - 4.077
6. SoMuchToSay - 4.231
7 (tie). austin - 4.308
7 (tie). GrinningLikeADevil - 4.308
9. joshtheking - 4.385
10 (tie). born - 4.769
10 (tie). schnetzka - 4.769
10 (tie). Tim - 4.769
13. neverduplicated - 5.077
14. 🌺CountryLineDancer - 5.231
15 (tie). .indulgecountry - 5.308
15 (tie). someguy - 5.308
17 (tie). lady𝓐fan - 5.385
17 (tie). bboat11 - 5.385
17 (tie). samo🦕 - 5.385
20. SabrinaFan - 5.769
21. †ealsünset - 5.846
22. MOWE - 6.000
23. nickd - 6.615
24. Mylo13 💜 - 6.692
25. jaden - 6.769
26. twigs - 7.000
27. wyckyd - 7.385
28. Hamed 🔪♥️ - 7.462
29. khan - 7.538
30. ethanhunt - 7.615
31. taylor - 9.462

Edit: And yes, I can't forget to thank my wonderful co-hosts born and taylor, it's always a blast hosting with you two!

[taylor]

I want to thank you all as well for your participation in another great rankdown, and for following along with reveals. It’s part of what makes these so fun for us! I also want to thank fearlessarrow for such a great job with data as always and born for superior graphics, also as always!

We hope to be able to reunite in the future for even more fun!

Sincerely & Fearlessly, Taylor
<3

SPOILER: Click to show

{thank you}
1. fearlessarrow
2. born
3. taylor
4. twigs
5. SabrinaFan
6. Hamed 🔪♥️
7. joshtheking
8. austin
9. wyckyd
10. MOWE
11. khan
12. neverduplicated
13. jaden
14. sapphire
15. ethanhunt
16. 🌺CountryLineDancer
17. lady𝓐fan
18. †ealsünset
19. .indulgecountry
20. schnetzka
21. someguy
22. SoMuchToSay
23. GrinningLikeADevil
24. Tim
25. reputainbow
26. nickd
27. Mylo13 💜
28. bboat11
29. samo🦕
30. #brayden
31. Mayman

Audience: Troublemaker imhappy259 Fire

[born]

Can you feel this magic in the air? We certainly can!
🌔
Thank you one more time, for dedicating your time to send us a list & also for following along! You make these rankdowns fun and exciting!
🌔
Much love to my co-hosts, fearlessarrow who is always in charge of the data and making sure we're good to reveal & taylor who is an expert rankdown host & hype-woman! I wish you both happy holidays & good luck on your endeavors. I hope it won't be long until we reunite!

[nickd]

Dec 11, 2022 23:01:04 GMT -5 taylor said:

Dec 10, 2022 20:45:00 GMT -5 nickd said:

Anyways, I'm gonna make a controversial prediction and say YBWM will be #1 ahead of LS.

Now what I did not expect was Fearless coming ahead of both (although I did expect it to land in the top 3). If this was a rankdown of the original recording I would've ranked it #1 but I slightly prefer the original to the re-recording and a lot of the other re-recordings shone through really strong.

I'm pleased to see Forever & Always do so well, it's always been one of my favourites. Can we make it go viral next now that TWILY has had its moment on Tik Tok?  

[Mylo13 💜]

Wow, I'm powerful! I was a taylor fan when Fearless was released and even at 6 years old I didn't really care for Love Story. 13 years on and nothing has changed, to me it remains one of her least inspired and unnoteworthy tracks. More power to y'all for loving it but it's probably in my overall bottom 10 from her.

On the other hand, Fearless the title track has always been a favourite and it's a well-deserving winner! Fun, hopeful and something I still relate to after all these years. And then there's You Belong With Me which is just a banger. Great top 2 even if we had a rocky road getting there

[twigs]

Thanks so much for hosting this guys!!

Overall I’m happy with the results. Kind of shocked at the winner, but it’s such a great song so I can’t be disappointed. Although Love Story is still my favourite on the album so I do wish it won.

We were happy definitely didn’t deserve last place but I can see why people wouldn’t like it. Hey Stephen also deserved a bit better imo.

[bboat11]

I have no idea how anybody could hold the opinion that the original version of "You Belong With Me" is the superior version with that distractingly overdramatic gasp for breath she takes in the middle of the bridge. The fact that that was fixed on the new recording automatically makes the song lightyears better!

[sapphire]

I missed the reveal but just found out that my #1 song ended up as a #1! Yaaay!

[fearlessarrow]

Dec 13, 2022 21:12:58 GMT -5 bboat11 said:

I have no idea how anybody could hold the opinion that the original version of "You Belong With Me" is the superior version with that distractingly overdramatic gasp for breath she takes in the middle of the bridge. The fact that that was fixed on the new recording automatically makes the song lightyears better!

For me, it's probably three things. One is nostalgia. "You Belong With Me" is basically the song that turned me into a big Taylor fan, and as subpar as it may be vocally compared to her more recent output, it's the version I've known until the re-recordings came out and it reminds me of a time when I listened to her debut and Fearless constantly. Then there's the lyrics which make more sense coming from a teenager's perspective (and I guess her vocals back then fit it better from this perspective as well). Finally, that association with a teenage romance is even stronger with the music video. The music video is iconic and it shows next-door neighbors, prom, cheerleading etc. which makes my association of the song with the teenage perspective even more.

[nickd]

Dec 13, 2022 21:12:58 GMT -5 bboat11 said:

I have no idea how anybody could hold the opinion that the original version of "You Belong With Me" is the superior version with that distractingly overdramatic gasp for breath she takes in the middle of the bridge.

I never noticed it, thanks.