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Songs Analysis Essay

Decent Essays

The three most downloaded songs from each of Taylor Swift’s six albums, a total of 18 songs, will be coded to identify the most commonly expressed themes that fans are likely to internalize. In order to determine the top songs, sample selections were crosschecked between various music services (iTunes, Billboard, VEVO, Spotify). Songs under analysis include: - Taylor Swift (2006): “Our Song,” “Picture to Burn,” and “Teardrops on my Guitar” - Fearless (2008): “Love Story,” “You Belong With Me,” and “White Horse” - Speak Now (2010): “Mean,” “Back to December,” and “Mine” - Red (2012): “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “22,” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” - 1989 (2014): “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Style” - reputation (2017): …show more content…

The prominence of specific themes will be noted per song and then evaluated across all six albums. By doing so, coders can locate the overarching themes expressed through Taylor Swift’s music, as they are more likely to be acquired by her fans. Only the themes that are explicitly and clearly portrayed will be coded, in order to avoid over counting. Coder Training and Reliability Testing The sample will be analyzed by two coders to check for reliability. Qualitative Content Analysis In order to locate the expected themes for later coding, a preliminary qualitative content analysis was performed of the 18 songs in the sample. One coder examined each song at the expression level in order to identify the commonly expressed themes, as well as analyze the level of dominance per each expression. This process constructed a list of themes, which were then ranked based on prominence throughout Swift’s six albums. The following measures were located: bad break-up/revenge, one and only/soul mates, secrecy/intimacy, fairytale romance/idealization of the perfect relationship, on-again off-again relationship, romanticizing of the bad boy trope, crazy ex-girlfriend, girl power/feminism, unrequited love, and reckless adolescent

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