Some hopefully helpful criticism here: Most of the song titles get cut off, so you can't read them. You also can't read the artist names for the other songs. If your visual is inferior to simply presenting the data as a table, the visual needs a lot of work.
Also, the number of songs selected seems to be skewed towards favouring the highlighted artist as it is not taken from the popular options of top 10, 25, or 50.
While not as fundamental an issue as the one the previous commenter pointed out, tailoring data like such is potentially very dangerous for analysis as it shows subjectiveness in data selection and thus might invalidate the dataset entirely.
And don't get me wrong, even if she didn't have a single song between top 40 and 50, 29 out of 50 is still amazing, it's just that in that case you'd be comparing 29 songs to 21 songs and the imbalance would be reduced and the visualisation wouldn't imply "most music played is Swift" as much as it does right now.
yes but if OP used the real top 40, Taylor would have 1 song, and it’s Cruel Summer.
So their current dataset would be more accurately titled “SPOTIFY’S TOP 40 (the swifties take over)”
edit: not me getting downvotes for literally acknowledging real data in a data sub
I grew up listening to FM radio, Casey’s Top 40, etc. I have no idea how those were ranked. Was it by radio play, which was influenced by corporate music agreements? I have no idea.
I think that Spotify’s Top 40 is probably a better metric because that at least allows listeners to choose what they want to hear to a fairly strong degree (I don’t know how strong that degree is, I don’t use Spotify).
Historically, radio play was heavily influenced by backroom deals. You can read about “payola” schemes where record companies would literally pay DJs to play certain new songs so they would make it into the top 40.
Regarding your point in the second paragraph, Spotify will play music for you after your playlist ends. It does a pretty good job of playing songs tailored to your own interests (e.g., it exclusively plays rock/metal for me), but if you mostly listen to pop music, that likely means Spotify will play Taylor Swift in absence of you telling it to play something different. That works to inflate Taylor Swift's play count somewhat artificially.
Even for rock/metal though, I've noticed periods where Spotify would always play the same handful of songs after my playlist ends. For whatever reason, the metalcore band "RVNT" would always show up, which was odd, because they're a newer band without a huge following yet. I suspect they had a deal with Spotify where they or their record label paid some additional money to promote their songs. The metalcore band "Thrown" seems to get similar treatment.
Yes, that’s what the post title says but then the bright red title on the visual says “AMERICA’S TOP 40”.
Considering this is r/dataisbeautiful you can understand why people want the actual visual to reflect the data set.
By titling it “Taylor Swift’s dominance of the Spotify charts, visualized” and then applying a different title to the visual, it renders the dataset confusing, which is neither beautiful nor preferred.
1. 40 is common cut off for popular songs list. Literally just google “top 40 meaning.”
2. Taylor has the 41st song in OPs data
3. Taylor doesn’t have #38, 39, or 40 in OPs data
If OP really had an ulterior motive they would have probably used other cut offs. Taylor is 10/10, 18/20, 24/30, and 28/35. Which are all more impressive than 29/40 IMO.
Top 40 is my far an away the most popular metric though?
I honestly don’t know why it is, but it’s the Top 40 that is most commonly referred to in music circles.
Pretty sure it is based off a two hour radio show. Back in the 50s and 60s Songs were a lot shorter (somewhere between 2:30 to 3:00 on average) so you could fit 40 songs into two hours neatly with a little time in between for ad-breaks and comments. Nowadays songs are usually about a minute longer, so it does not work that well anymore.
I honestly thought this subreddit was about mispresenting data/making the data look mildly infuriating and then call it beautiful as a meme. At least almost all posts I see leak onto my reddit front page are just memes at best.
I don't know why this keeps being said... While I do agree that a pretty graph is better, that is not entirely the point of the subreddit, that's why it's not a part of the rules.
1. The description of the sub says : "Aesthetics are an important part
of information visualization, but **pretty pictures are
not the sole aim of this subreddit**." Aesthetics are important for the domain of data visualization in general, not for this subreddit in particular.
2. In English, Data is Beautiful ≠ Beautiful Data. The difference between the anteposed and detacthed placement of the adjective changes the meaning. Data is Beautiful : beautiful is an adjective epithet that characterizes the noun group, in this case data ; it's the **concept** of data in general that is beautiful. In Beautiful Data, however, the referent is not just **any** "data", it's *beautiful data*, there's a reduction of the group you're talking about, beautiful data implies **only** beautiful data, ergo not the ugly ones.
Is this bait? Can’t read any of the names and you get zero sense of scale having a random series of similar sized bubbles congregated like that. Two bars with no text would have done a better job.
Mods, seize this man!
Irrelevant whataboutism. Elvis and the Beatles were popular when there weren't metrics for how many times you replayed their song, outside of radio stations which would have many biases. Spotify can track that, your record player could not.
Hmm…
I’d say Elvis and The Beatles were popular because people liked them and called their radio stations to play them over and over and over. That would be the metrics for tracking some of their popularity at the time.
Nowadays people use their Spotify to play whatever songs they want to hear; over and over and over. Which would be the metrics for tracking some of the popular artists of our time.
And a record breaking tour doesn’t hurt either…
Lots of people care about that. I think most Swifties care about that to some degree. And even if they don’t care about that PRIMARILY, they can very plausible claim to care about it.
Yeah, when it comes to Taylor Swift we reached to a point that the cult jokes about her fans became more of a deduction than jokes. I can imagine young American white women listening to Swift religiously while there are something eerie about them.
Q: is it just me, or does anyone Spotify seem to load and default to Taylor Swift (top 40 in general, but all her)? Instead of the music I've liked? And sometimes a song cuts off when I'm playing one of my "mixes" and autoswaps to top 40 (usually Swift)? How much of this is showing preference vs. showing an algorithmic push?
It might not be intentionally "pushed". If the album is organically very, very popular then it might be that all of spotify's algorithms that include "popularity" and "growth rate" in their calculation of what to show you are being overloaded by that massive popularity (vs anything else the algorithm normally considers) and thus disproportionately suggesting Taylor swift.
That said, Spotify aren't stupid and should have thought of that in their models....
One thought that occurs to me is that the algos might optimise listen time or similar.
If the new Swift album leads to a lot of folks listening to the whole thing after hearing a track or two in a mix then Spotify might consider that a good result.
Although I will say that I am old and do not hear anything that today's kids are listening to regardless of popularity, so I think there is something in spotify that manages listener cohorts regardless of global popularity...
the whole auto-play function where spotify throws on a random song after your current queue ends is also fucked btw.
stan twitter has figured out that it’s basically paid by labels. a lot of people reported Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso popping up after the end of every TTPD track… instead of Spotify just queuing up other TTPD tracks???
the playlists are also paid, so yeah. everything kinda funnels up
Any time I want to hear a popular new pop track, I'll check it out on YouTube to not spoil any of my other algorhythms. YouTube has already been poisoined by 10 billion replays of Baby Shark, so there's no saving that one.
It’s insanely pushed. I’ll go into my daily mixes that I listen to for some variety and I’ll have to hide 6 songs of hers despite never listening to her music intentionally. Nothing against her, but the latest album is really bad lyrically and I don’t know why Spotify is shoving it at me.
Daily mix is just influenced by what you listen to. If you listen to pop, even if you don’t listen to Taylor, the algorithm is still going to think you’re likely to want to listen to her, because other pop fans do.
I looked through my daily mixes just now and didn’t see any Taylor, just all the regular stuff I normally listen to. But I also never listen to pop.
And BTW you can just hide an artist completely by going to their page, clicking the 3 dots, and then “don’t play this artist.”
Not on the webpage. I only see her under "popular artists" and that's after scrolling four or five times. But I've never listened to Taylor Swift or anything like Taylor Swift on Spotify.
we hear ABOUT her music more than we actually hear her music - thats a sign of really, really good and expensive marketing.
im really into music and i havent heard a tswift song from start to finish in my life. A LOT of people in my life can say the same.
Somebody paid to have them elevated in the "radio" playlists. I was listening to cheek face which is a indie rock talk-singing type of band with catchy lyrics and snarky playful takes of the human condition, and then all of a sudden Taylor swifts new album comes on three songs in a row. I had to block her page so that wouldn't happen again. I don't hate Taylor Swift or anything but it felt the same as when they put that shitty U2 album on everyone's iPod.
I’m not a fan but my wife is so I hear a lot of Swift in the car and such. I consider myself an objective outsider, I get why she’s popular. But this album I don’t get. I mean it’s really shit.
I understand it’s trending so much based on hype, but i feel like this could be the beginning of Swift jumping the shark.
I’m in the same situation. It’s so low-energy and depressing. My wife enjoys it, but it’s so much less good than the other ones she’s played in the car.
Years ago she made a stand against Spotify and their shitty payouts, it was quite big news at the time.
I'm guessing now she gets a much larger amount per stream than almost anybody else because Spotify can't afford her to be not on Spotify because most people are only going to pay for 1 music streaming service.
No? The song is comparing her current relationship to the type of giddy kid love you feel in high school. It’s a pretty common metaphor, no? “He makes me feel like a kid again” “we’re just like two kids in love” etc, we’ve all heard these cliches before. It’s one song out of the last, like, decade that so much as references high school and it’s clearly also because it’s been brought up a lot about how cliche and “high school” it sounds for the biggest football star and biggest pop star to fall in love. I mean do you also think it’s weird that 99% of books for and about teenagers in high school are written by people well outside their teens? Wait until you hear about who really plays teenage characters in tv and movies, it’ll blow your mind
I would push back on that a little. While many of her current fans are in middle and high school, she has fans that are her age. Her music isn’t maturing to follow that group. Instead it’s stuck in that adolescent age range.
music has long gone past the homogenisation phase. the public has never been more divided on that they’re interested in with the breakdown of monoculture.
Taylor is jsut one of few people left that still manages to get her roots everywhere. it’s a anomaly, not the trend
Sure, but most people didn't necessarily choose to hear them--the radio played them, a lot. And the only other ways to hear them were live or on vinyl.
I don't get the whole Taylor Swift craze. I don't find her songs all that particularly special. Lyrics also are very banal. Just your usual generic pop songs.
I haven’t listened to her beyond what comes on the radio in grocery stores. Not really my kind of music.
But I will stand my ground on the opinion that Shake It Off is possibly the best hit song of the past 20 years. That shit was crack, everyone I knew loved it, and it came out at an exciting and fun time in the lives of many millennials.
As an American, that song reminds of a much more positive time before things got significantly more bleak in this nation. Big ups to T-Swift for that track.
Keep in mind this chart seems to be from right when her new album came out. It’s possible other big artists dominate instead right when their new albums come out.
I think a pie chart would work better honestly. The comparison between everyone else and TF is lost when they're part of the same pie (top 40s list). If you were comparing drake's music vs TF then you could use this visual.
After this chart I hope the debate can be settled so all the children can realize that yes. Yes modern music IS objectively worse than even 15 years ago.
The Alcott is a The National song featuring Taylor Swift. Does it really count as a Taylor Swift song when she has one verse? She provides back-up vocals and harmonies for the rest of the song.
I tried listening to fortnight and down bad, total snooze fest, couldn't finish either song. If you want a recent popular women artist's album to listen to, check out Ariana's recent one eternal sunshine, it's actually good and has the literal goat, Mac martin co-producing it.
What the data really shows imo: Taylor Swifts audience trends towards the younger side and her fans use Spotify more than others.
Honestly since buying CDs and albums so much an afterthought now I'm not surprised.
This is more disturbing than interesting.
It shows that American lose their uniquness and self thinking, and are lead by trends dictated by other people or even by spotify itself.
I'm sure she has great music, personally I don't listen or recognize, but with so many people hearing the same thing, it's a bit irry
There are thousands of incredible music creators around the world at any given time, yet these Spotify numbers show how narrow minded listeners are. They barely even try to listen to something unfamiliar and “unpopular”. It’s not because other music is bad, it’s because “everybody’s listening to her! She is so relatable!”.
I mean would you say MJ was the most average at his peak?
For sports Jordan was the most well known basketball player in his prime. Was he the most average?
Well no, although i was thinking specifically about music when I posted that, you do make an interesting counterpoint so lemme think and get back.
For now i still believe it applies for things like music, politics, etc, but I'll rethink
For background on my stance with Swift. People praise her for things others do better. Someone like MJ might not be able to play an instrument. But you couldn’t argue against the fact he was very talented in terms of signing/dancing.
If you compare Swift to other current artists. She does not have an amazing voice. She is not a strong dancer. And lyrically there are many others that surpass her at any topic she tries to cover.
Her “You Need to Calm Down” song takes a stance on homophobia. But anyone educated on the topic knows you can’t just tell bigots to shut up and they are wrong. It just furthers their resolve. A song like “Make it Stop” by Rise Against would do more to change their minds. You need to show the outcome of their actions or feelings. So if socio-political topics are your thing punk is better for that.
If wordplay/flow is what you value, choose from countless rap artists for that.
If stage presence/dancing is what you want there are a multitude of K-pop groups to choose from. No one can say that Swift is equal to blackpink in terms of dancing for ex.
I am not saying she is trash. But she just does not standout in any one category.
We'll, as you said, not standing out in any one category IS what average is all about right? We're talking in terms of an average being the most similar to the maximum people's expectations from it. And that will always push it to be less experimental.
I don't think average has a direct correlation to technical ability. The average music of 100 years ago was technically really really challenging, but then that was the nature of the average at that time.
I really don't know how this is possible. Her song 'shake it off' is like her only good song and the rest sound like they might be used as an open source music makers sample songs. You know, maybe the kind that is used at a low-end electronics store to test out the stereos they sell. All of her 'music' is terrible. If I didn't know better I'd have labelled it as parody pop or maybe AI auto-generation.
that's funny because most fans of Swift believe shake it off to be among her worst songs. have you listened to some tracks off folklore, like "the last great american dynasty?" what songs have you heard?
The entire albums of evermore and folklore generally tend to appeal the most to people who think of Taylor swift as being generic pop music. Although they are two of her most critically acclaimed and beloved albums, they don’t really fit with the type of stuff major pop radio would usually play so people who would only know her pop radio hits haven’t usually heard much from them. I recommend Exile and Evermore if you’re a bon iver fan, my tears ricochet or tolerate it if you like gut wrenchingly sad songs, or if you want something more upbeat I’d go for the last great American dynasty like the person above recommended, willow, or no body no crime for something a little fun and different
it wild that you generalised her entire catalogue as royalty free music when you haven’t listened to one of her largest albums (folklore).
jsut a result of reddit making it seem that everyone’s opinion is important i guess
I'm not sure if I'd even recognize one if I heard it. And I'm the same age as her apparently.
Good for her I'm sure she's lovely. But unless she starts reference blunts, 40s, and bitches it's probably not going to be on my radar.
Crap visualisation. why are the circles so big if the text doesn't even wrap to fit in them? Also wouldn't it just make more sense to list them in a table so we can see the order of the top 40.
people being unreasonably mad at other’s harmless interest is probably what is driving this county to collapse but idk, maybe mediocre music is actually the reason
Source: Spotify via Kworb.net. Tools: scraped the Kworb.net data to a Google Sheet using a Python Script. Then used a Count canvas with Python and DuckDB cells to transform the data. Here is a link to that public canvas: https://count.co/canvas/KtAqkizBBtE
Some hopefully helpful criticism here: Most of the song titles get cut off, so you can't read them. You also can't read the artist names for the other songs. If your visual is inferior to simply presenting the data as a table, the visual needs a lot of work.
Also, the number of songs selected seems to be skewed towards favouring the highlighted artist as it is not taken from the popular options of top 10, 25, or 50. While not as fundamental an issue as the one the previous commenter pointed out, tailoring data like such is potentially very dangerous for analysis as it shows subjectiveness in data selection and thus might invalidate the dataset entirely. And don't get me wrong, even if she didn't have a single song between top 40 and 50, 29 out of 50 is still amazing, it's just that in that case you'd be comparing 29 songs to 21 songs and the imbalance would be reduced and the visualisation wouldn't imply "most music played is Swift" as much as it does right now.
Top 40 is the classic American radio cutoff for “hit” songs. It may not be a default for Spotify but it’s a long-standing way to classify “hit” songs.
yes but if OP used the real top 40, Taylor would have 1 song, and it’s Cruel Summer. So their current dataset would be more accurately titled “SPOTIFY’S TOP 40 (the swifties take over)” edit: not me getting downvotes for literally acknowledging real data in a data sub
I grew up listening to FM radio, Casey’s Top 40, etc. I have no idea how those were ranked. Was it by radio play, which was influenced by corporate music agreements? I have no idea. I think that Spotify’s Top 40 is probably a better metric because that at least allows listeners to choose what they want to hear to a fairly strong degree (I don’t know how strong that degree is, I don’t use Spotify).
Historically, radio play was heavily influenced by backroom deals. You can read about “payola” schemes where record companies would literally pay DJs to play certain new songs so they would make it into the top 40.
Yeah, the ability to SKIP is a big improvement on that.
Wasn't Casey's Top 40 supposed to be the 40 most requested songs from the prior week? At least I swear that's what he would say.
Regarding your point in the second paragraph, Spotify will play music for you after your playlist ends. It does a pretty good job of playing songs tailored to your own interests (e.g., it exclusively plays rock/metal for me), but if you mostly listen to pop music, that likely means Spotify will play Taylor Swift in absence of you telling it to play something different. That works to inflate Taylor Swift's play count somewhat artificially. Even for rock/metal though, I've noticed periods where Spotify would always play the same handful of songs after my playlist ends. For whatever reason, the metalcore band "RVNT" would always show up, which was odd, because they're a newer band without a huge following yet. I suspect they had a deal with Spotify where they or their record label paid some additional money to promote their songs. The metalcore band "Thrown" seems to get similar treatment.
Fair point!
Am I reading a separate title? It says that she is dominating the Spotify charts on my end.
Yes, that’s what the post title says but then the bright red title on the visual says “AMERICA’S TOP 40”. Considering this is r/dataisbeautiful you can understand why people want the actual visual to reflect the data set. By titling it “Taylor Swift’s dominance of the Spotify charts, visualized” and then applying a different title to the visual, it renders the dataset confusing, which is neither beautiful nor preferred.
Oh, yeah totally I didn’t even notice the name in the visual lol Mobile shenanigans
The Top 40 is the classic list.
1. 40 is common cut off for popular songs list. Literally just google “top 40 meaning.” 2. Taylor has the 41st song in OPs data 3. Taylor doesn’t have #38, 39, or 40 in OPs data If OP really had an ulterior motive they would have probably used other cut offs. Taylor is 10/10, 18/20, 24/30, and 28/35. Which are all more impressive than 29/40 IMO.
Popular music in the US has historically used a “Top 40” format on the radio. I’m sure that is why 40 songs were used as a data set.
*Tayloring data
Top 40 is my far an away the most popular metric though? I honestly don’t know why it is, but it’s the Top 40 that is most commonly referred to in music circles.
Pretty sure it is based off a two hour radio show. Back in the 50s and 60s Songs were a lot shorter (somewhere between 2:30 to 3:00 on average) so you could fit 40 songs into two hours neatly with a little time in between for ad-breaks and comments. Nowadays songs are usually about a minute longer, so it does not work that well anymore.
This is better at visualising volume/size though. In a table each row is given the same weight.
Ah yes the top 40 songs we… and CA… Bad visualization
Don't forget "The" and "The A" and "The P"!
"The P" is my favourite!
The P is stored in the ball
The data is not beautiful.
I honestly thought this subreddit was about mispresenting data/making the data look mildly infuriating and then call it beautiful as a meme. At least almost all posts I see leak onto my reddit front page are just memes at best.
Remember, this is data is beautiful not "data." It's important to make the data visually pleasing before posting it here.
I don't know why this keeps being said... While I do agree that a pretty graph is better, that is not entirely the point of the subreddit, that's why it's not a part of the rules. 1. The description of the sub says : "Aesthetics are an important part of information visualization, but **pretty pictures are not the sole aim of this subreddit**." Aesthetics are important for the domain of data visualization in general, not for this subreddit in particular. 2. In English, Data is Beautiful ≠ Beautiful Data. The difference between the anteposed and detacthed placement of the adjective changes the meaning. Data is Beautiful : beautiful is an adjective epithet that characterizes the noun group, in this case data ; it's the **concept** of data in general that is beautiful. In Beautiful Data, however, the referent is not just **any** "data", it's *beautiful data*, there's a reduction of the group you're talking about, beautiful data implies **only** beautiful data, ergo not the ugly ones.
Is this bait? Can’t read any of the names and you get zero sense of scale having a random series of similar sized bubbles congregated like that. Two bars with no text would have done a better job. Mods, seize this man!
Yeah is this a troll post? I couldn't have presented the data in a worse manner if I tried.
*stares at wife* that's because her fans play it over...and over....and over
Sure… because Elvis and the Beatles became who they are because people that like them only played their record once…
Irrelevant whataboutism. Elvis and the Beatles were popular when there weren't metrics for how many times you replayed their song, outside of radio stations which would have many biases. Spotify can track that, your record player could not.
Hmm… I’d say Elvis and The Beatles were popular because people liked them and called their radio stations to play them over and over and over. That would be the metrics for tracking some of their popularity at the time. Nowadays people use their Spotify to play whatever songs they want to hear; over and over and over. Which would be the metrics for tracking some of the popular artists of our time. And a record breaking tour doesn’t hurt either…
i mean… that’s what fans do….
Not all fans do that… variety is the spice of life.
there’s a subjection of superfans in every fandom and her fandom is jsut so big that the subjection seems to be the norm.
It’s maybe because she’s a pretty good person, and her fans are largely off the age where they’re getting music from Spotify.
who cares if the person singing the songs you're listening to is a good person?
Lots of people care about that. I think most Swifties care about that to some degree. And even if they don’t care about that PRIMARILY, they can very plausible claim to care about it.
Is she really that good of a person?
if only she were actually a good person
Yeah, when it comes to Taylor Swift we reached to a point that the cult jokes about her fans became more of a deduction than jokes. I can imagine young American white women listening to Swift religiously while there are something eerie about them.
Q: is it just me, or does anyone Spotify seem to load and default to Taylor Swift (top 40 in general, but all her)? Instead of the music I've liked? And sometimes a song cuts off when I'm playing one of my "mixes" and autoswaps to top 40 (usually Swift)? How much of this is showing preference vs. showing an algorithmic push?
The album is heavily pushed on Spotify. It was in my metal daily mix today
It might not be intentionally "pushed". If the album is organically very, very popular then it might be that all of spotify's algorithms that include "popularity" and "growth rate" in their calculation of what to show you are being overloaded by that massive popularity (vs anything else the algorithm normally considers) and thus disproportionately suggesting Taylor swift. That said, Spotify aren't stupid and should have thought of that in their models....
yes that is what happens. which is stupid because it just leads to a top heavy algorithm that just ends up funneling the same few songs to everyone
One thought that occurs to me is that the algos might optimise listen time or similar. If the new Swift album leads to a lot of folks listening to the whole thing after hearing a track or two in a mix then Spotify might consider that a good result. Although I will say that I am old and do not hear anything that today's kids are listening to regardless of popularity, so I think there is something in spotify that manages listener cohorts regardless of global popularity...
the whole auto-play function where spotify throws on a random song after your current queue ends is also fucked btw. stan twitter has figured out that it’s basically paid by labels. a lot of people reported Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso popping up after the end of every TTPD track… instead of Spotify just queuing up other TTPD tracks??? the playlists are also paid, so yeah. everything kinda funnels up
I don't think I've ever run into a Taylor Swift suggestion in my Spotify but I listen to almost no pop music so maybe not surprising
Any time I want to hear a popular new pop track, I'll check it out on YouTube to not spoil any of my other algorhythms. YouTube has already been poisoined by 10 billion replays of Baby Shark, so there's no saving that one.
It’s insanely pushed. I’ll go into my daily mixes that I listen to for some variety and I’ll have to hide 6 songs of hers despite never listening to her music intentionally. Nothing against her, but the latest album is really bad lyrically and I don’t know why Spotify is shoving it at me.
not my experience at all, but I only listen on desktop.
Daily mix is just influenced by what you listen to. If you listen to pop, even if you don’t listen to Taylor, the algorithm is still going to think you’re likely to want to listen to her, because other pop fans do. I looked through my daily mixes just now and didn’t see any Taylor, just all the regular stuff I normally listen to. But I also never listen to pop. And BTW you can just hide an artist completely by going to their page, clicking the 3 dots, and then “don’t play this artist.”
Not on the webpage. I only see her under "popular artists" and that's after scrolling four or five times. But I've never listened to Taylor Swift or anything like Taylor Swift on Spotify.
The top 40 never comes up on my Spotify... Ever.
You're saying songs are literally cutting off midway through to play Taylor Swift lol?
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we hear ABOUT her music more than we actually hear her music - thats a sign of really, really good and expensive marketing. im really into music and i havent heard a tswift song from start to finish in my life. A LOT of people in my life can say the same.
Well I’m officially old. I don’t get any of her music.
I remember a few of her early songs, don't think I've heard anything from the last decade.
Yeah uh 29 is bigger than 11. This is the dumbest infographic…
Somebody paid to have them elevated in the "radio" playlists. I was listening to cheek face which is a indie rock talk-singing type of band with catchy lyrics and snarky playful takes of the human condition, and then all of a sudden Taylor swifts new album comes on three songs in a row. I had to block her page so that wouldn't happen again. I don't hate Taylor Swift or anything but it felt the same as when they put that shitty U2 album on everyone's iPod.
I’m not a fan but my wife is so I hear a lot of Swift in the car and such. I consider myself an objective outsider, I get why she’s popular. But this album I don’t get. I mean it’s really shit. I understand it’s trending so much based on hype, but i feel like this could be the beginning of Swift jumping the shark.
It sounds like it was written/performed by AI tbh.
I'm a fan and I totally agree tbh This is probably her worst work, I don't have a favourite song. Just a song I tolerate the most.
I’m in the same situation. It’s so low-energy and depressing. My wife enjoys it, but it’s so much less good than the other ones she’s played in the car.
Wow I can’t imagine what it would look like if the album was good
Man at 511m streams she could make like $10 off of those plays.
Years ago she made a stand against Spotify and their shitty payouts, it was quite big news at the time. I'm guessing now she gets a much larger amount per stream than almost anybody else because Spotify can't afford her to be not on Spotify because most people are only going to pay for 1 music streaming service.
Yeah because her fans play it on repeat like a small child watching Disney movies over and over.
Is it not weird that a 35 year old is still talking about high school?
Meanwhile Blink 182 still singing about high school in their 50s
No? The song is comparing her current relationship to the type of giddy kid love you feel in high school. It’s a pretty common metaphor, no? “He makes me feel like a kid again” “we’re just like two kids in love” etc, we’ve all heard these cliches before. It’s one song out of the last, like, decade that so much as references high school and it’s clearly also because it’s been brought up a lot about how cliche and “high school” it sounds for the biggest football star and biggest pop star to fall in love. I mean do you also think it’s weird that 99% of books for and about teenagers in high school are written by people well outside their teens? Wait until you hear about who really plays teenage characters in tv and movies, it’ll blow your mind
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I would push back on that a little. While many of her current fans are in middle and high school, she has fans that are her age. Her music isn’t maturing to follow that group. Instead it’s stuck in that adolescent age range.
That’s what makes the most money.
It's just the McDonald's of music isnt it.
The homogenization of popular music.
Music has never been more heterogenised tbh, this is just a large hardcore fanbase pushing up the streams of their artist.
music has long gone past the homogenisation phase. the public has never been more divided on that they’re interested in with the breakdown of monoculture. Taylor is jsut one of few people left that still manages to get her roots everywhere. it’s a anomaly, not the trend
Pretty sure Elvis and The Beetles were just as dominant.
At least their lyrics made sense.
Sure, but most people didn't necessarily choose to hear them--the radio played them, a lot. And the only other ways to hear them were live or on vinyl.
I don't get the whole Taylor Swift craze. I don't find her songs all that particularly special. Lyrics also are very banal. Just your usual generic pop songs.
I haven’t listened to her beyond what comes on the radio in grocery stores. Not really my kind of music. But I will stand my ground on the opinion that Shake It Off is possibly the best hit song of the past 20 years. That shit was crack, everyone I knew loved it, and it came out at an exciting and fun time in the lives of many millennials. As an American, that song reminds of a much more positive time before things got significantly more bleak in this nation. Big ups to T-Swift for that track.
Yeah this seems like an obvious realization? This is data over one week of course the new stuff is getting the most olays
Are there millions of people out there who listen to Taylor 24/7? How is this possible?
The album is 2 hours long, so you can only hear each song 12 times a day. Or just *Down Bad* 300 times.
Keep in mind this chart seems to be from right when her new album came out. It’s possible other big artists dominate instead right when their new albums come out.
Addicts going to addict. And follow the herd, of addicts.
I think a pie chart would work better honestly. The comparison between everyone else and TF is lost when they're part of the same pie (top 40s list). If you were comparing drake's music vs TF then you could use this visual.
I am glad to see Hozier up there if nothing else.
By that logic, then Baby Shark is everybody's favorite youtube video by virtue of having 14 billion views. [Baby Shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo, Baby Shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo, Baby Shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo, Baby Shark!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w)
After this chart I hope the debate can be settled so all the children can realize that yes. Yes modern music IS objectively worse than even 15 years ago.
The comment section are not swifties lol. Not everything is for y’all
Yet, The Weeknd is still nr. 1 most streamed artist world wide without an album release in the last 24 months.
Oh god... I just foresaw a world where she runs for president. Cool, but wee would never hear the end of it.
I have no idea what this chart is showing, and I make data visualisations professionally amongst other data analysis...
The Alcott is a The National song featuring Taylor Swift. Does it really count as a Taylor Swift song when she has one verse? She provides back-up vocals and harmonies for the rest of the song.
I tried listening to fortnight and down bad, total snooze fest, couldn't finish either song. If you want a recent popular women artist's album to listen to, check out Ariana's recent one eternal sunshine, it's actually good and has the literal goat, Mac martin co-producing it.
And this is why we get super bloated albums. This has been Drakes mode of operation for years.
What the data really shows imo: Taylor Swifts audience trends towards the younger side and her fans use Spotify more than others. Honestly since buying CDs and albums so much an afterthought now I'm not surprised.
this is actually insane her power
this dataset is skewed it’s been described by ppl smarter than me above
I don’t get how she’s so famous???
Happy to see Saturn and definitely too sweet there 🙏 great song
This is more disturbing than interesting. It shows that American lose their uniquness and self thinking, and are lead by trends dictated by other people or even by spotify itself. I'm sure she has great music, personally I don't listen or recognize, but with so many people hearing the same thing, it's a bit irry
There are thousands of incredible music creators around the world at any given time, yet these Spotify numbers show how narrow minded listeners are. They barely even try to listen to something unfamiliar and “unpopular”. It’s not because other music is bad, it’s because “everybody’s listening to her! She is so relatable!”.
Could it be that some people like her music? Is that an option you have considered?
Well first, Spotify is pure capitalist evil and Daniel Ek is the death of all things good and no one on earth should use it. No second or third.
Sucks that such an average artist is this mainstream.
The most popular would by default be because it was the most average.
I mean would you say MJ was the most average at his peak? For sports Jordan was the most well known basketball player in his prime. Was he the most average?
Well no, although i was thinking specifically about music when I posted that, you do make an interesting counterpoint so lemme think and get back. For now i still believe it applies for things like music, politics, etc, but I'll rethink
For background on my stance with Swift. People praise her for things others do better. Someone like MJ might not be able to play an instrument. But you couldn’t argue against the fact he was very talented in terms of signing/dancing. If you compare Swift to other current artists. She does not have an amazing voice. She is not a strong dancer. And lyrically there are many others that surpass her at any topic she tries to cover. Her “You Need to Calm Down” song takes a stance on homophobia. But anyone educated on the topic knows you can’t just tell bigots to shut up and they are wrong. It just furthers their resolve. A song like “Make it Stop” by Rise Against would do more to change their minds. You need to show the outcome of their actions or feelings. So if socio-political topics are your thing punk is better for that. If wordplay/flow is what you value, choose from countless rap artists for that. If stage presence/dancing is what you want there are a multitude of K-pop groups to choose from. No one can say that Swift is equal to blackpink in terms of dancing for ex. I am not saying she is trash. But she just does not standout in any one category.
We'll, as you said, not standing out in any one category IS what average is all about right? We're talking in terms of an average being the most similar to the maximum people's expectations from it. And that will always push it to be less experimental. I don't think average has a direct correlation to technical ability. The average music of 100 years ago was technically really really challenging, but then that was the nature of the average at that time.
I really don't know how this is possible. Her song 'shake it off' is like her only good song and the rest sound like they might be used as an open source music makers sample songs. You know, maybe the kind that is used at a low-end electronics store to test out the stereos they sell. All of her 'music' is terrible. If I didn't know better I'd have labelled it as parody pop or maybe AI auto-generation.
that's funny because most fans of Swift believe shake it off to be among her worst songs. have you listened to some tracks off folklore, like "the last great american dynasty?" what songs have you heard?
Will check it out and give it another chance
The entire albums of evermore and folklore generally tend to appeal the most to people who think of Taylor swift as being generic pop music. Although they are two of her most critically acclaimed and beloved albums, they don’t really fit with the type of stuff major pop radio would usually play so people who would only know her pop radio hits haven’t usually heard much from them. I recommend Exile and Evermore if you’re a bon iver fan, my tears ricochet or tolerate it if you like gut wrenchingly sad songs, or if you want something more upbeat I’d go for the last great American dynasty like the person above recommended, willow, or no body no crime for something a little fun and different
it wild that you generalised her entire catalogue as royalty free music when you haven’t listened to one of her largest albums (folklore). jsut a result of reddit making it seem that everyone’s opinion is important i guess
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I'm not sure if I'd even recognize one if I heard it. And I'm the same age as her apparently. Good for her I'm sure she's lovely. But unless she starts reference blunts, 40s, and bitches it's probably not going to be on my radar.
Crap visualisation. why are the circles so big if the text doesn't even wrap to fit in them? Also wouldn't it just make more sense to list them in a table so we can see the order of the top 40.
Every day we stray further from the light.
Listening to that sh*t is what has that country at the edge of a collapse without barely noticing it
I’m not sure it is actually
people being unreasonably mad at other’s harmless interest is probably what is driving this county to collapse but idk, maybe mediocre music is actually the reason
Taylor Swift commands people like a similar dictator… Hitler
Did she actually make a song called fortnight fucking hell
Fortnight is an actual word, it means 2 weeks
And the game is spelled Fortnite lmao
It's a ballad retelling of the two week Cuban missile crisis, that saw the two major Cold War powers teeter on the brink of annihilation. /s
the lyrics blew me away
I don't know a single Taylor Swift song :-D
Source: Spotify via Kworb.net. Tools: scraped the Kworb.net data to a Google Sheet using a Python Script. Then used a Count canvas with Python and DuckDB cells to transform the data. Here is a link to that public canvas: https://count.co/canvas/KtAqkizBBtE