Taylor Swift's Most Underrated Songs: Ranked By Data Analytics
BuzzFeed
·18-min read
I'm Andrew, a senior data analyst for BuzzFeed, and a Swiftie! (You might remember me from last year, when I ranked the most similar and most different Taylor's Versions.) Over the years, I've noticed the power that Taylor's catalog holds — every song she's released has dedicated superfans.
We know "All Too Well," "Blank Space," and "Cruel Summer" are fan favorites, but which songs are the most underrated? After searching through numerous Reddit threads and opinion pieces, I became curious about answering the question using data analytics.
This analysis focuses on songs from the deluxe editions of Taylor's 10 studio albums (no vault tracks, voice memos, piano/acoustic/remixes, or stand-alone singles were included).
Disclaimer: I removed "Soon You'll Get Better" from the analysis, as I felt a song so personal to Taylor couldn't be considered under- or overrated.
Now let's get to the data part!
The methodology (feel free to skip if you don't like math!):
I defined "underrated" as a combination of streaming performance and critical acclaim (ideally, a song with lower streaming performance and high critical acclaim). To rank the songs, I wrote a formula with three parts:
1) For every song, I found the percent difference between its lifetime Spotify streams and the median streams of its album. For albums with a Taylor's Version (Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989), I combined streams from the original song and its Taylor's Version. This measures how the song is streamed relative to its own album. A positive "own album" score means the song was streamed below the median, so the lower streams contribute to it being underrated.
2) For every song, I found the percent difference between its lifetime Spotify streams and the median streams, including neighboring albums. For example, the set of neighboring albums for Red are Speak Now, Red, and1989. This reveals songs that may be more popular on their own album but not highly streamed relative to surrounding albums. No Taylor's Version streams were used in this section. A positive "neighboring albums" score means the song was streamed below the median, contributing to it being underrated.
3) For every song, I assigned a critical acclaim score. I used an average of six rankings of Taylor's discography from media publications. This reflects how the songs stand against one another in the eyes of Swifties. Songs on the upper half of the rankings got a more positive score (high acclaim), the middle of the ranking got a score of 0 (neutral acclaim), and songs on the lower half got a more negative score (low acclaim).
A positive "critical acclaim" score means the song was ranked in the upper half, which boosts underratedness for songs with high praise and lowers it for songs with lower critical opinion. For context, "All Too Well" scored the highest critical acclaim with this data. Thank you to Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, NME, Vulture, Paste, and TheCoolist!
Spotify streaming data was pulled as of 2/2/2024.
After adding each part of the formula together, I was able to rank from most to least underrated.
Honorable mentions that got very close to making the list include "Epiphany," "Sweet Nothing," "I Almost Do," "The Lucky One," and "You Are in Love."
The graphs show the distribution of how each part of the formula (streaming performance relative to its own album, its neighboring albums, and critical acclaim) contributed to the songs' underrated scores.
So there you have it, Red fans! Using this formula, "Holy Ground" took the title of most underrated.
Though only one method of ranking, I thought the results were promising! Interestingly, every album except Taylor Swift had a song that made the top 25.
For more Taylor Swift data, check out my analysis of the most similar and different Taylor's Versions!
Any music-related data questions you want me to look into? Want to share your personal choice for Taylor's most underrated song? Feel free to comment!
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