DataStory
DataStory
What makes a Taylor Swift song?
What makes a Taylor Swift song?
By Julia Ercolano
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From country upstart to pop icon to indie songstress, Taylor Swift has run and won the genre gambit. Through each style, she's explored and adapted key themes that characterize her often autobiographical songwriting. Many of them are romance related: new love, young love, hard love, past love. This motif has resulted in Swift being labeled a one trick pony only capable of writing about the woes of her love life. But to diminish Swift's music in this way is to seriously undermine her lyrical and instrumental genius. As a credited writer on every one of her songs, she has demonstrated an impressive range and storytelling ability that has woven her discography into an interconnected opus–a Swiftverse, if you will.
Look What You Made Me Do
Look What You Made Me Do
Taylor Swift's Muses
Taylor Swift's Muses
In addition to romance, stories of growing up, friends becoming foes, and the perils of fame flesh out Taylor Swift's deeply personal lyrical canon. These themes can be broken down into 7 basic subjects:
Crush: songs about romantic interest or desire outside of an established relationship
Relationship: songs about an established romantic relationship, i.e. dating, marriage
Ex: songs about a romantic relationship that has ended, i.e. breakup songs
Self Reflection: songs which demonstrate themes of finding oneself, growing up, and self-awareness
Enemy: songs about a rival, enemy, or other negative non-romantic relationship
Family: songs having to do with family members
Other: songs which do not fit into any of the above categorizations
It's true that most of Swift's songs–nearly three-quarters–are about romance, falling under the Crush, Relationship, or Ex subject categories. Critics have labeled this consistency as unoriginal or derivative, and have judged Swift's talent accordingly. But songs written about the same subject can have wildly different sounds and meanings.
Figure 1: Song Count by Subject
Figure 1: Song Count by Subject
Color and labels show details about Subject. Size and label show count of songs classified as said subject.
Figure 2: Albums by Subject
Figure 2: Albums by Subject
Subject (color) broken down by Album and Genre. Each mark represents a song, color-coded by Subject.
Sad Beautiful Tragic
Sad Beautiful Tragic
Measures of Mood
Measures of Mood
Though the subject matter for many songs may overlap, Swift's music spans moods and energy levels. Her breakup songs can be heartbroken, regretful, relieved, or angry. Her songs about finding love can be excited, scared, self-doubting, or confident. These different moods have different sounds–different energy levels, different valences, even different levels of "danceability." If Swift truly has one consistent and redundant "sound," then her songs would have similar values in all of these measures. Instead, each album shows a range of both energy and valence. With her two most recent albums being her foray into indie music, it makes sense that there has been a downward trend in the average energy level over time. When folklore (2020) and evermore (2021) are removed from the dataset, the trend line has a shallower slope and lower confidence rating, suggesting that the first seven albums do not have a consistent trend in energy level. Valence does not change significantly over time, suggesting that throughout her career Swift has always incorporated a variety of emotions. Not only do all of Swift's songs therefore not "sound the same," but even within albums she has a variety of styles.
Figure 3: Energy and Valence Across Albums
Figure 3: Energy and Valence Across Albums
Trends of average Energy and average Valence across albums (corresponding to year). Each mark is a song and color shows details about Albums.
Valence: A measure from 0.0 to 1.0 describing the musical positiveness conveyed by a track. Tracks with high valence sound more positive (e.g. happy, cheerful, euphoric), while tracks with low valence sound more negative (e.g. sad, depressed, angry).
Danceability: describes how suitable a track for dancing based on a combination of musical elements including tempo, rhythm stability, beat strength, and overall regularity. A value of 0.0 is least danceable and 1.0 is most danceable.
Energy: A measure from 0.0 to 1.0 and represents a perceptual measure of intensity and activity. Typically, energetic tracks feel fast, loud, and noisy.
Figure 4: Energy and Danceability by Valence
Figure 4: Energy and Danceability by Valence
Trends of the average Energy and Danceability of each song in relation to average Valence. Each mark is a song and color shows details about albums.
There are also relationships between these mood measures. Unsurprisingly, both average Energy and average Danceability have strong positive correlations with average Valence–that is to say, the more "positive" a song sounds, the more energetic and danceable it is perceived to be. As with every rule, there are exceptions. The song Delicate off of the reputation (2017) album has a low Valence, medium Energy, and high Danceability. It is a song about the fragile beginnings of a relationship, in which Swift expresses fears that she will be judged for her bad reputation and jeopardize her newfound love. The lyrics of the song are vulnerable yet tentatively hopeful. They are complimented by an electropop accompaniment with heavy beats, which produces a heavy, languid sound with a steady rhythm suited to dancing (the music video for Delicate features a solo dance number by Swift). Altogether, this song has a composition that is somewhat contrary to established trends and demonstrates an ability to experiment with new sounds and patterns.
Delicate is the fifth track on reputation (2017). Fans of Swift know that "track fives" will be among the most emotional and raw songs on an album. On average, the Valence for track fives is lower than the rest of the tracks (compared to an average of fifteen tracks per album; there are bonus songs which have lower Valences and are later track numbers, but these only represent one or two songs whereas track five represents a single song from all nine albums). All You Had To Do Was Stay off of 1989 (2014) has the highest Valence and Energy of any track five song, though the Valence is still only at the halfway mark, classifying it as neutral in mood. This song features a fast, upbeat pace and vocals which seem at times mismatched with the story of a partner whose indecision and inability to commit breaks the speaker's heart. It is an excellent example of Swift's ability to play with lyrics and sound to create songs which have layered meanings.
Figure 5: Tracks by Valence
Figure 5: Tracks by Valence
Average Valence for each Track #. 15 tracks represent the average length of an album. Orange color denotes other tracks, and red color marks track 5 songs.
Figure 6: Track 5s by Valence and Energy
Figure 6: Track 5s by Valence and Energy
Average of Valence vs. Average of Energy for all songs. Color and shape show details about track number, with Track 5 highlighted.
Long Live
Long Live
What Swift's Fans Love
What Swift's Fans Love
Some may expect that Swiftie's must all be in it for the heartbreak and yearning, but in fact Taylor Swift has found similar levels of success across subjects, with average Popularity percentages all between 60 and 66%. Similarly, Valence and Energy do not correlate with Popularity. The only measure which has a relationship with Popularity is Danceability, which has a weak positive correlation.
Figure 8: Popularity % by Valence, Danceability, and Energy
Figure 8: Popularity % by Valence, Danceability, and Energy
Average of Popularity % vs. Average of Valence, Average of Danceability, and Average of Energy. Each mark is a song and olor shows details about Subject.
Figure 7: Popularity % by Subject
Figure 7: Popularity % by Subject
Average of Popularity (%) for each Subject. Color shows Subject.
long story short
long story short
Conclusion
Conclusion
Taylor Swift is a talented songwriter whose phenomenal success has come from her ability to write meaningful, resonant songs across topics, genres, and moods. This range is what makes a Taylor Swift song. Music's power comes from its ability to evoke emotion, and Swift has demonstrated her skill in successfully evoking a range of feelings across musical stylings. While her most popular songs may be the dance-y singles that make it onto the radio, each of her studio albums substantiates Swift's creative scope and mastery of the music industry.
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