Taylor Swift fans already know that "Bad Blood," the most recent single from Taylor Swift's 1989, has been tearing up YouTube thanks to a music video starring Kendrick Lamar, Selena Gomez, Lena Dunham, Ellie Goulding and a multitude of others. That sort of hype helped it grab the record for most views in a 24-hour period on VEVO, taking the prize from Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda." Nonetheless, it's still only the no. 16 in terms of total views for Swift music videos. Check out the Top 7 on YouTube as of publication:
07) "Love Story"...225 million views
Not exactly the one that started it all...but this track more than any other made the nation aware of Swift's existence. Not being the superstar she is now (and not exactly prone to showing skin like other pop stars), there wasn't as much inclination for viewers to seek out the video on YouTube (just stating the facts), so despite being one of Swift's biggest hits to this day, and having been online for more than seven years, "Love Story" has still "only" gathered 225 million views on the video service. In the viral age, shock and awe is what makes a video viral, and this "only" has a great piece of music behind it.
06) "I Knew You Were Trouble"...245 million views
By the time Swift had gotten around to recording the album Red, she was a full-on superstar and the videos start to reflect that. "I Knew You Were Trouble" somewhat buys into the Lady Gaga approach—making pop songs into lengthier epics for video purposes—featuring a dramatic voiceover and shots of Swift wandering, sans music, through the desert. One theory that this clip somewhat diffuses: Sex is the only thing that drives music video viewership. It's probably the edgiest Swift clip in terms of that sort of content, featuring her getting close with the kind of guy your mother also knew was trouble, but that unto itself wasn't enough to make it her most viewed video.
05) "22"...258.5 million views
As if to prove our point, the very next music video that Swift released has seen much higher viewership than "I Knew You Were Trouble," despite featuring much less risqué content. Perhaps it's because "22" used another surefire method of attracting viewers: celebrities. Granted, the video for this single was meant to reflect the pop star's real life, but her real life also involves hanging out with famous people, such as Gossip Girl's Jessica Szohr. Not exactly an A-lister, but perhaps enough to attract the attention of viewers the world over. Whatever director Anthony Mandler did, it worked: "22" has gotten more views than "I Knew You Were Trouble" despite not coming close to the latter's no. 2 spot on the Hot 100.
04) "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"...300.25 million views
There's something to be said for using risqué imagery...and there's something to be said for getting celebrity guest stars...but sometimes it's just a good idea to create an excellent music video, conceptually and otherwise. In this regard, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" is the best that Swift has ever produced and fans rewarded to single-shot clip by pushing its total views over the 300 million mark. That makes it the last video, and also the highest placing, from her last album Red. Some fans are bound to disagree with our thoughts that this is the best in her collection. Comment section is below, guys.
03) "You Belong With Me"...434 million views
Things take a dramatic jump from the no. 4 to no. 3 spots on our countdown, with "You Belong To Me" trumping "Never Ever" by more than 130 million views. You can argue that "Belong" got a three-year head start but I think we both know enough about videos viewership to know that's not the case. Once again, the concept is entirely the driving force here, and is the first in what we would call the "modern" state of Swift videos. "Love Story" featured a video that pretty much lined up with the lyrics, a sappy product that your correspondent would have called typical of Swift circa 2009. "You Belong With Me" got way more creative however, casting Swift as both the high school nerd and the social queen bee. The loser-getting-the-guy theme would have been totally lame had Swift not played both hero and villain.
02) "Shake It Off"...823 million views
If you don't grasp how far YouTube has come in such little time, it's tough to comprehend how a video released late last year has doubled the viewership of every other one of Swift's videos, minus two. According to reports from 2009, YouTube had more than 120 million viewers. Fast forward five years and now the site claims more than 1 billion different viewers...a 733 percent increase over five years. Simply put, the more viewers you have to begin with, the more a "viral" video is going to gather. If "You Belong With Me" was watched by 80 percent of YouTube's users at the time of its release, it would have grabbed 96 million views in one day. If "Shake It Off" got the same percentage of viewers to watch, it could grab 800 million views in one day. Modern videos simply have an advantage over those of yesteryear. We could complain but we don't want to be part of the haters going to hate, hate-hate-hate-hate.
01) "Blank Space"...878 million views
We've already talked up all the factors that make for an attractive video: risqué content, celebrity guest spots and engaging concepts. "Blank Space" only needed one of those things to surpass "Shake It Off." The idea of Swift playing a crazy, maniacal ex-girlfriend was enough to bring in the viewers, and enough to make the "Blank Space" video the no. 6 most-watched clip in YouTube history. For now. "Bad Blood" has obviously proven that it can gather an audience, and it currently has more than 77 million views after just one week. It won't be instantaneous...but by the end of 2015 we could be looking at a new name at the top of Swift's most popular videos.
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