If you think you know Taylor Swift\u2019s music, chances are you don\u2019t know it like Andrew Ledbetter does.<\/p>\n
The chair of communication studies at Texas Christian University said his love story with Swift\u2019s music began during graduate school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was driving around Lawrence, Kansas\u2014where I went to graduate school\u2014and \u2018Love Story\u2019 came on the radio, and I remember thinking to myself, \u2018I think I could be a Taylor Swift fan,\u2019\u201d Ledbetter recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fandom just grew and grew from there,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Now, in what he calls his \u201cresearch era,\u201d Ledbetter wanted to test an academic theory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was interested in interconnections among the song lyrics,\u201d he said. \u201cThe songs that are most central have a lot of overlap with other songs, might tend to be songs that are the most popular.\u201d<\/p>\n
To test that, Ledbetter ran the lyrics from all 10 of Swift\u2019s albums, out at the time, through a computer program to look for patterns.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt what threshold do we say, \u2018Okay, these two songs are connected?\u2019\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
That threshold turned out to be 13.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a Taylor Swift song\u2014two Taylor Swift songs\u2014share at least 13 words in common, then those two songs, mathematically, it makes sense to treat those as connected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Thirteen is Swift’s self-proclaimed lucky number. <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cOkay, she really is the mastermind. I\u2019m sure there\u2019s no way she could\u2019ve planned out that level of detail, and there was a mathematic rationale for that cut-off, but I just really like that cut-off as a Swiftie,\u201d Ledbetter said.<\/p>\n The results supported his theory.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are exceptions, but generally, the songs that are most central do tend to be songs that either are big hits or they\u2019re perhaps fan favorites,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ledbetter measured popularity using Spotify streams, critical reviews and social media mentions.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018All Too Well\u2019 is a very central song. \u2018Blank Space\u2019 is a very central song,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n His research is published in Communication Quarterly, a peer-reviewed academic journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n