OR·dih·nuh·list

Your Music Taste Deserves Answers

Unfortunately, that means making some decisions. Ordinalist turns any album, playlist, or discography into a series of head-to-head choices, then builds your ranking.

See how it works

Etymology

Why Is It Called That?

Derived from the word Ordinal, an Ordinalist is someone (or something) who has an unnecessary commitment to putting their preferences in ranked order. Yes, we thought way too hard about this. Now you’re part of it.

or·di·nal·ist

noun · /OR-DIH-NUH-LIST/

1. One who assigns ordinal rank (first, second, third) to a set of data.

2. A person now weirdly opinionated about their music. See also: you.

The Method

We mathematically made your indecision useful.

You know Purple Rain is better than Poker Face, but figuring out where either belongs among the other 38 songs sounds like a nightmare. Ordinalist breaks the problem into simple choices and gives you one clear, accurate ranking. No more dragging songs up and down a playlist like a moron.

40 songs

one messy playlist

Purple Rain vs Poker Face

simple A / B decisions

1 ranking

favorite to forgettable

How It Works

Four taps to go from chaos to certainty.

Step 01

Choose an album, playlist, or artist’s discography to rank.

Ordinalist screen for choosing an album or playlist to rank

Step 02

Ordinalist shows you two choices, you pick your favorite.

Step 03

When you’re done, you get your full ranking. You didn’t even have to do any math.

Ordinalist screen showing your full ranking

Step 04

Sync rankings back to Apple Music and take your poor decisions with you.

Ordinalist screen syncing your ranking back to your playlist

Ranking Stats

Ordinalist doesn’t decide what you like, but it does keep receipts.

When the ranking is done, Ordinalist gives you more than a list. See how many songs you ranked, how long you took, which decisions were lightning-fast, and which ones triggered a mental breakdown.

SUPPORTED PLATFORMS

It works everywhere you do.

Built for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, Ordinalist uses haptics, has a native dark mode, and feels like an app that belongs on your devices. Start ranking on your iPhone, finish on iPad, and show off your awful taste on the Mac. It works like an Apple-designed app should, but without the two-hour keynote.

CarPlay

Your rankings, now riding shotgun.

Play your ranked albums and playlists in ranked order, right from CarPlay. You already overthought the ranking, now try to enjoy the drive.

Recently ranked

All your rankings

Privacy

All (bad) opinions stay between you and iCloud.

Your library stays private and rankings and stats sync through your iCloud account. Ordinalist has no accounts, ad profiles, or servers quietly taking notes on your music taste. Nothing is sent to us, nothing is tracked, and nothing is sold.

Read the full privacy policy

Pricing

Your wallet gets to stay out of this.

Ordinalist is free, always. It’s a passion project, not a subscription trap wearing a nice coat. It does not exist to be an income source. There are no tiers, no upsells, no “unlock your taste” nonsense; just a quirky music-ranking app, made because I wanted it to exist.

Available now on the App Store

Go become weirdly opinionated.

Feeling brave?

Download Ordinalist

Download Ordinalist for free if your music taste is ready for judgement.

BETA COMPLETE

Thank you for helping test Ordinalist.

Your feedback shaped Ordinalist before launch.

To everyone who ranked, tested, reported bugs, and shared ideas: thank you. You helped make Ordinalist what it is today.

Ordinalist beta-complete thank-you screen on an open foldable device

Ordinalist beta-complete thank-you screen on a folded device

Support

Run into something?

If something breaks, behaves strangely, or you just have thoughts, send them my way. Your rankings stay private, this form is the only thing that reaches me.

Typical response

1–2 business days