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.
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 measureshow 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 thepercent difference between its lifetime Spotify streams and the median streams, including neighboring albums.For example, the set of neighboring albumsfor Red areSpeak Now, Red, and1989. This revealssongs 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 streamedbelowthe median, contributing to it being underrated.
3) For every song, I assigned a critical acclaimscore. I used an average of six rankings of Taylor's discography from media publications. This reflectshow 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.
The Top 25 Most Underrated Taylor Swift Songs
Honorable mentions that gotveryclose 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.
