Billie Eilish and Data | Spotify Data Analysis

In a previous analysis, collecting views on the most played songs of the decade, it came as a result that the song “bad guy” by Billie Eilish is the most played song of the decade!! Personally, I wasn’t even aware of her existence, but I was very intrigued by this fact and wanted to discover data-wise about possible explanations for all this success. Therefore, I have decided to pursue this analysis which tries to answer the key factors and variables of her debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”

I have collected this data through the Spotify API, using the R language and the function of the Spotify package “Get Playlist Audio Features”, resulting in the following metrics which are further explained on the Spotify website (https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/#category-tracks).

Note: 2. The Song “!!!!!!” is an introduction to the album, and currently (june 2021) has 68k plays. That is very typical of the digital/streaming pattern of listening, where the songs are not necessarily played in chronological order. 

The visualizations were done in the Tableau and the complete dashboard can be found on this link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/lucas8158/viz/BillieEilish-Whenweallfallasleepwheredowego-SpotifyDataAnalysis/Story1

Acousticness

Acousticness: it represents how much the track is acoustic. A score of 100 means the song is most likely to be an acoustic one.

On this metric, we have the hit song “when the party's over” ranking as #1.

Energy

Energy: perceptual features contributing to this attribute include dynamic range, perceived loudness, timbre, onset rate, and general entropy.

On this cut, we have “bad guy” as the #3 more energetic on the album.

Tempo

The songs with the highest tempo (in beats per minute) are on the lowest average of plays. Note that this metric is not 100% accurate.

Speechiness

The highest speechiness rate is correlated with the most played track “bad guy”, followed by two tracks that stand on the lower averages of plays, meaning it’s not necessarily the correlation factor. 

Instrumentalness

As for this metric, more instrumental songs are correlated to fewer plays.

Liveness

Liveness: detects the presence of an audience in the recording. Higher liveness values represent an increased probability that the track was performed live.

The song “wish you were gay” accounts for 75% of liveness, being out of the pattern of 23% average on the other songs.

Danceability

Danceability: it represents how suitable a track is for dancing based on a combination of musical elements including rhythm stability, beat strength, and overall regularity.

The song “my strange addiction” ranks the best on the Danceability metric, followed closely by “bury a friend” (the third most played song of the album)  and “ilomilo”. The average Danceability on the album is 58%. 

Valence

Valence: tracks with high valence sound more positive (e.g. happy, cheerful, euphoric), while tracks with low valence sound more negative (e.g. sad, depressed, angry).

On the top 4 of the Valence metric, we have four technical draws, being the hit “bad guy” one of these. 

Popularity overview and final thoughts

The top three songs popularity-wise are not necessarily highest ranking in any of the metrics, therefore there’s no clear answer whether the fact of ranking high in one specific metric achieves the popularity for the hits on this album.

Some of the key takeaways on the most popular songs:

Bad guy: #1 for speechiness, #3 for energy, #4 or #1  (draw) for valence

When the Party's over: #1 for acousticness

Bury a friend: #2 danceability

Contributions: Maiara Schein (Insights)

I would also like to dedicate this analysis to my three nieces who are big fans of Billie Eilish :)