Underrated Eleven: Taylor Swift Edition
a meditation on value and worth
Matt introduced me to the concept of the Underrated Eleven when we would work long slow Wednesday shifts together at the beloved Butler’s Delicatessen on Church Street in St Andrews. Butlers was a quaint shop with enormous glass windows at street level. We would watch passerby from behind the counter, gossiping about whoever entered our theater from stage left or stage right. It’s only thinking back on this now, on this deli that is no longer a deli, a space that now only lives in our shared memory, that I realize we performed our own tableau for those on the other side of the glass. Once, we played frisbee with a container lid. Another time, Matt stacked all of the pennies in the till (excuse me, cash register) up his forearm. At the end of a Sunday when notably, not one customer asked for a receipt, we took the spiraling log of the day’s orders and wrapped it around my body. I remember these instances because they’re saved in iPhone 4 snapshots in the crypt of my Facebook profile. Most of our shifts were unremarkable, but never boring, because we would talk the entire time, listening to the same twelve hours of The Head and the Heart and Arctic Monkeys and Mumford & Sons on loop.
The Underrated Eleven is a list that ultimately measures something’s worth, or value, against its perceptive appreciation. You can curate an Underrated Eleven for any category you’d like: breakfast cereal; household chores; European cities; days of the year; beverages; etc. It makes for riveting conversation, as subjectivity postures as objectivity. Because really, what is value? and what does it mean to be valued? These are immeasurable ideas that we hurl against each other and whittle down to a finite amount.
I initially reached out to Matt for us to collaborate on a single list. But then I realized: why? Some boring logistics — these lists are ordered by album, not by rank or value. We shared/agreed on several honorable mentions, which I’m deciding to omit here so as not to threaten the integrity of the system.
My list is probably skewed towards the earlier days of Taylor - I can (and will) listen to Fearless and enjoy every song on there. There really are two main things I want to address in my list:
i. I have a theory that the last song on most albums is in fact the best. I have a Spotify playlist that I add to when I listen to an album and think the last song deserves to be on there. Currently on said playlist are Best/Rest (Bon Iver), Champagne Supernova (Oasis) and Percolate (Foy Vance). Taylor is an artist whose albums I believe fall into this trope. While I think some are rated correctly (Evermore/New Year’s Day/Daylight), Clean is perhaps the standout song on this entire XI.
ii. While trying to select songs I found myself leaning heavily on bonus tracks. Mainly because by nature, a bonus track will be more obscure and thus rated lower. It was difficult to not just select a full XI of bonus songs (New Romantics, you were so close to the list) but this is more of a public service announcement than anything. People argue whether Taylor is good/not good or genius/not genius - I dare you to listen to The Moment I Knew and then the 10 minute All Too Well and tell me she isn’t one of the greatest songwriters ever. - MG
Underrated Eleven of Taylor Swift Songs (Matt’s Version)
The thing about me and Taylor is that we really came together as adults. (“Adults.”) I didn’t subscribe to the Swiftie hysteria when I was in high school. I didn’t feel I could relate to her music, as someone who never seemed to be involved in romantic entanglements. I hated hearing the screeching vocals of my peers in the locker room before class. For Christmas 2014, my dad wrapped the 1989 CD and put it under the tree for me. I’ve not asked him if he listened to it at all in the music store on those little headphones they’d have available as you wove through the rows of plastic stacks. If you spent any time in my car that winter break, I’m sorry (I’m not sorry). “Blank Space” was a revolutionary moment for me - the first time I recognized that I could separate myself from who I used to be, or better, from the idea of me that others have shaped. “Self” as a character, a creation, an impression, a moment. —KS
Underrated Eleven of Taylor Swift Songs (Kelsey’s Version)
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