With the release of a blockbuster album like “Harry’s House,” every ranking seems controversial. But when I look at so many different sources of criticism, I can’t help but wonder how controversial my own ranking is. I have always been a huge fan of the scientific method, so I might as well apply to a statistical analysis of “Harry’s House” reactions! But in order to get a full layout, I’ve collected data from 4 sources: myself, megafans, streaming services (or experts), and well-known critic publications.
BREAKING DOWN THE CRITICS’ DATA
I collected rankings from 3 websites: Billboard, GQ UK, and PopBuzz. From there, I inserted the rankings into Excel and applied a score based on the addition of their respective rankings within each website. For example, if “Satellite” was ranked 3rd in Billboard, 10th in GQ, and 11th in PopBuzz, its score would add up to 3+10+11, or 24. After finding the score, find the mean value to assign a vague final ranking. For “Satellite,” this average value would be 8, so in the final rankings for the critics, “Satellite” would be ranked somewhere near 8th. Because there are some repeat values, I judge their final ranking based on the polarity between the raw data. For example, if “Cinema” had a score comprised of 13+8+3, I would allow “Satellite” to come before it because its values are more spread out. In reality, the two ranks could be interchangeable, but for the sake of scoring, I just give them numbers in order to tabulate.
This is the raw data of each website with the scores and mean values. This data can be visualized in this chart:
To be clear, the lower the score, the more the critics liked the song. It’s clear that the critics have a rollercoaster of preference around the album, a testament to the ebb and flow of the album’s organization.
Based on this data and my organizational methods, the critics’ rankings come out to:
- Late Night Talking
- As It Was
- Daydreaming
- Cinema
- Matilda
- Daylight
- Satellite
- Music for a Sushi Restaurant
- Little Freak
- Keep Driving
- Boyfriends
- Love of My Life
- Grapejuice
Now, let’s talk about this because I disagree. Why in the Big Man’s name are “Grapejuice” and “Love of My Life” so low and why is “Daydreaming” so high? I get why critics would love “Cinema” and “Late Night Talking,” but to place “Boyfriends” above “Grapejuice”???? That feels targeted to me specifically. The critics are so boring! Have some fun, live a little! I mean, they really LOVE “Daydreaming.” It’s a good song, don’t get me wrong, but for it to be 3rd? It seems like they’re trying to seem fun by liking an upbeat “Treat People With Kindness-” type song, but I think they didn’t want to get ripped to shreds for putting “As It Was” so high every single time.
BREAKING DOWN THE EXPERTS’ DATA
Here is the raw data from streaming services including Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube:
When reviewing the data, context is required for some of the rankings. For example, “As It Was” had several weeks to accumulate nearly billions of streams, though by the time the album was available on YouTube, not many people viewed the video for “As It Was” if they were using YouTube to listen to the album for the first time. This difference in release explains the massive disparity when comparing Spotify and iTunes to YouTube. When visualized, the data looks like this:
Though this data isn’t quite as rollercoaster as the critic’s opinions, streaming reflects a common tendency for interest to taper off steadily as the album progresses with some of the most streamed being the first two songs and the rest being mostly viral tracks from the album like “Matilda” and “Daylight.” This data all breaks down into these rankings:
- Late Night Talking
- Music for a Sushi Restaurant
- Matilda
- As It Was
- Daylight
- Satellite
- Love of My Life
- Cinema
- Little Freak
- Daydreaming
- Grapejuice
- Boyfriends
- Keep Driving
“Late Night Talking” appears to be THE song of the album based on it leading the past two data sets with “Matilda” following up. I am personally offended by the fact that “Keep Driving” is dead last, but at least “Satellite” is in the upper half of the rankings. “As It Was” is holding its own despite the first three being viral on TikTok, but its streams on Spotify and iTunes are ludicrous! The only reason it’s not top three is because of the low YouTube views, but it has almost a billion streams on Spotify alone!
BREAKING DOWN THE FANS’ DATA
In order to get diverse data, I asked three fans that I know personally to give me their rankings knowing that each had very different tastes in Harry’s music. All three have been massive fans of his since the One Direction days and share similar tastes pre- “Harry’s House;” however, when it comes to this album, they couldn’t be more different. Here’s the raw data:
I personally thought it might be extremely similar to the streaming data, but I couldn’t have been more wrong! I forgot to factor in the fact that the more pop-heavy songs would have more streams based on the radio, corporate soundtracks, and commercials. This is the visualized version of the data:
Though this is somewhat similar to the streaming graph, it has major key differences, specifically for “Grapejuice” and “Keep Driving.” “Late Night Talking” and “Matilda” continue to lead the way, though “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” makes an interesting comeback. Ultimately, the rankings are:
- Keep Driving
- Grapejuice
- Matilda
- Late Night Talking
- Daylight
- Music for a Sushi Restaurant
- As It Was
- Boyfriends
- Satellite
- Cinema
- Daydreaming
- Love of My Life
- Little Freak
Why does everyone not like “Love of My Life?” It’s the perfect ending to the album and it’s gorgeous! “Little Freak” being at the bottom surprised me, but it feels right considering it’s the most One Direction-y and without Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson to carry the harmonies, it feels empty.
LET’S PUT IT ALL TOGETHER!
My ranking is:
- Satellite
- Grapejuice
- Love of My Life
- Daylight
- As It Was
- Keep Driving
- Late Night Talking
- Matilda
- Cinema
- Little Freak
- Music for a Sushi Restaurant
- Daydreaming
- Boyfriends
Yeah, that’s right! “Satellite” is my number one! I can’t believe the slander it’s endured thus far. Let’s see all the data together:
The numbers represent the final rankings, so when all of this is graphed, it comes out to this masterpiece:
I mean, my God. It’s just a mess. Both my ranking as well as the fans’ ranking seem to diverge intensely from the seemingly more moderate critics’ and experts’ rankings. It reflects a mild conformity of the critics’ to the whims of what streaming numbers imply, meaning they’re slightly afraid as journalists to incite bias that may seem illogical to others. I personally don’t feel the need to explain why I love “Love of My Life,” even if it often ranks low, but the critics’ went with several safer picks and what anyone might expect to be the more critically-acclaimed songs that represent technical and songwriting-based nuance. It’s like how Rotten Tomatoes really liked the live-action “Mulan” remake when literally everyone else hated it and didn’t ask for it.
The song that wins the day because of high streams, safety in numbers, and an amicable reputation among fans is “Late Night Talking” with the loser being “Boyfriends.” I do really like the song but I genuinely cannot relate to it at all.
I hope this statistical analysis was insightful and helpful for you, whether you’re a fan of the album or not. It took me a tragic amount of work and time, but I’ll be darned if I don’t remember general Statistics when I got a 95% on the final after studying for like 6 hours. Don’t be afraid to do some research on statistics, because in the end, we can conclude that critics are boring, streams are predictable, fans are biased, and I am controversial. What’s your ranking of “Harry’s House”? Is it contrary to my data? Disprove my experiment!