“Look What You Made Me Do,” “Ready For It,” and “End Game,” the first three singles from Taylor Swift’s 2017 album “reputation,” did not fare well in the Mediabase pop radio callout reports.
During their runs, each song ranked near the bottom of the pack for “net positive” score (the percentage of people with a favorable reaction minus the percent with a negative one).
The data was not necessarily surprising. The songs were different — and more fundamentally polarizing — than many of Swift’s past hits.
The scores may, however, have adversely impacted airplay. “Look What You Made Me Do” hit #1 but crashed immediately after, while “Ready For It” and “End Game” arguably underperformed. The former missed the Top 10; the latter just barely got there.
Initial callout scores have emerged for fourth single “Delicate.” While the data is not necessarily glowing, it is more favorable than that for the previous “reputation” singles.
“Delicate” received a positive score from 60.3% of listeners and a negative score from 18.3%, thus yielding a net positive rating of 42.0%.
Of the fifteen songs measured, it has the sixth-best net positive score. Its negative rating is the fourth-best (lowest).
A glass-half-empty reading would note that the positive score (10th out of 15) and favorite rating (17.1%, 14th out of 15) are low. The listener pool – whether due to a lack of familiarity or the song’s low-key nature – does not love Taylor Swift’s “Delicate.”
It is, however, showing more overall acceptance than it did to the era’s previous singles.
It remains to be seen whether the scores will positively impact the song’s trajectory. Now in its tenth week on the Mediabase pop chart, “Delicate” is headed for a Top 15 position.
