Taylor Swift - "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart"

[balletgirlmom]

For those who do not follow charts, as we Pulse members do, this was a huge radio hit.  Why?  Because they heard it.   Causal listeners heard this a lot and still are.  Radio played in offices, public spaces, cars are what casual listeners hear and Taylor's music old and new is always on radio somewhere.  

[👑 Eloquent ™]

Nov 29, 2024 14:18:29 GMT -5 balletgirlmom said:

For those who do not follow charts, as we Pulse members do, this was a huge radio hit.  Why?  Because they heard it.   Causal listeners heard this a lot and still are.  Radio played in offices, public spaces, cars are what casual listeners hear and Taylor's music old and new is always on radio somewhere.  

100% correct.

Tbh Taylor doesn't even need radio at all to have a successful era at this point in her career and it's clear radio and even singles aren't her primary focus at this point. It's all about album performance, as we're discovering with the near 7x platinum Tortured Poets.

[Mayman]

Here's a better look at the timeline on the overall radio chart for some of her singles:

Look What You Made Me Do
Last Week at Peak (#4): October 15, 2017
Last Week on Chart: November 12, 2017

Lavender Haze
Last Week at Peak (#9): April 9, 2023
Last Week on Chart: May 14, 2023

Karma
Last Week at Peak (#5): July 30, 2023
Last Week on Chart: April 28, 2024


Is It Over Now?
Last Week at Peak (#3): March 10, 2024
Last Week on Chart: May 5, 2024


Fortnight
Last Week at Peak (#6): June 9, 2024
Last Week on Chart: August 4, 2024

[NeRD]

Nov 29, 2024 14:42:31 GMT -5 👑 Eloquent ™ said:

Nov 29, 2024 14:18:29 GMT -5 balletgirlmom said:

For those who do not follow charts, as we Pulse members do, this was a huge radio hit.  Why?  Because they heard it.   Causal listeners heard this a lot and still are.  Radio played in offices, public spaces, cars are what casual listeners hear and Taylor's music old and new is always on radio somewhere.  

100% correct.

Tbh Taylor doesn't even need radio at all to have a successful era at this point in her career and it's clear radio and even singles aren't her primary focus at this point. It's all about album performance, as we're discovering with the near 7x platinum Tortured Poets.

Yep, we saw that with Folklore. Only one single with a tepid response from Pop radio yet the album sold great.

[doppelganger]

Nov 29, 2024 13:41:22 GMT -5 85la said:

Look What You Made Me Do: 21-9-7-6-5-4-3-1-7-16-25-29-31-33-37-39-40-38-37

Lavender Haze: 40-35-31-31-28-20-16-16-15-15-15-13-13-13-11-10-9-7-7-6-5-5-6-7-10

Is It Over Now?: 38-23-18-12-11-10-10-8-7-7-7-6-5-5-4-4-4-3-1-2-7-13

Fortnight: 13-11-9-7-7-7-7-6-5-5-5-6-8-24-33-38

ICDIWABH: 36-22-20-17-15-13-13-13-14-11-10-10-10-10-11-11-8-8-6-5?

I really like this post. Very thought provoking analysis imo. 

I do believe that, to a significant extent, sound media (especially the iHeart and Cumulus blocs) understands that certain artists are to be supported just as major actors tend to land role after role in our favorite shows and movies. Perhaps not payola as much as a mutual relationship in an overly consolidated corporate playground, however sound media is certainly not the independent entity that some folks would prefer; it would be silly to believe so.

A few additional points:

I think LWYMMD is an outlier. It also existed at a time when the pop charts were much healthier. I always drew parallels between this and Britney’s HIAM when it was charting. They both were highly anticipated leads that were somewhat jarring in nature. I truly think the hype alone combined with a fresh sound sent them both to the apex, however subsequent callout scores quickly led the them being ushered out of rotation. HIAM was definitely treated less harshly in comparison though.

The others are all similar to each other in the sense that they didn’t seem to be calibrated in a precise manner in terms of their respective pop culture impacts. By that I mean they were either relatively pop-unfriendly songs that streamed very well or they were pop-friendly songs that were pushed on pop radio long after they had their respective moments on streaming.

I’ve also seen this pattern before on other songs too, however it really does seem to predominate in Taylor’s late catalogue. I could be wrong (chartsuta is gone 🙃) but Ed Sheeran (EC), Morgan Wallen (LN), and Dua Lipa (Houdini) all displayed a similar pattern recently. Please watch DITF too, I think it’s doing the same exact thing right now.

Didn’t mean to hijack the conversation. I’m a bored music geek. Carry on lol