Aug. 30, 2023, 12:01 p.m.
Women songwriters, heat records, and data-driven clocks
Four new visual essays from The Pudding
The Pudding
The Pudding is a publication for visual essays. You may have stumbled upon some of our projects, such as Women’s Pockets are Inferior, How Bad is Your Spotify or Apple Music?, or A People Map of the US.
Jan here, reporting for newsletter duty! We have *four* new projects we are excited to share with you.
Women are superstars on stage, but still rarely get to write songs — We looked at songwriting credits since 1958 from Top 5 hits in the Billboard Hot 100.
Mapping Record-High Heat in U.S. Cities — A rework of an older project, we’re tracking how many days it’s been since a city had a record-high temperature.
A Clock Where the Time is in a Song Title — Exactly what it sounds like!
A Clock Where the Time is Mentioned on YouTube — Also exactly what it sounds like!
As always, thanks a ton for continuing to subscribe and allowing us to share our work with your inbox. Special shout-out to Patreon subscribers and paid Substack subscribers; your support means a lot!
Women Songwriters
How rare is it songs written exclusively by women to crack the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100? Well, since 2011 there have been five: Kate Bush’s “Running Up that Hill (A Deal with God),” Tones and I’s “Dance Monkey,” and the Taylor Swift trio of “All Too Well,” “Mine,” and “Today Was A Fairytale.” Five songs out of 214, two of which where written before 2011, and three of which written by Swift. For this piece, we created the most expansive dataset on songwriters’ gender going back to 1958.
Mapping Heat Records
We first published this project in March 2022, but we’ve updated it for a cleaner data experience as the Earth experiences its hottest year on record. I’m currently writing this newsletter from scorching San Antonio, TX where yesterday was a daily record high and the 23rd consecutive day with +100°F (38°C) degree temperatures (also a record). 🥵
A Clock Where the Time is in a Song Title
The first iteration of the Data Clock project is part clock / part playlist, where every minute a song with a time in the title that corresponds to your local time is played. Be sure to visit at these times to hear some of the most popular songs included in our data: 12:51am/pm for the Strokes, 10:35am/pm for Tiesto and Tate McCrae, and 2:30am/pm for Asake. My personal favorites, and the most ridiculous song titles in the data, can be heard at 11:36 and 5:07.
A Clock Where the Time is Mentioned on YouTube
In the second iteration of the Data Clock project, we look at when a YouTube video mentions the exact time (am/pm included). With over 58,000 videos, you’re sure to discover something outside your typical feed’s algorithm.
Quick asides!
We’re excited to announce that our portfolio was recognized by the Online Journalism Awards for “General Excellence in Online Journalism (Micro Newsroom)” and “Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling (Small Newsroom).”
Have a cool essay idea that you want to make? Check out our pitch guidelines.
Want to hire our team to produce data-led, visual stories? Check out our sister studio, Polygraph. We recently collaborated with Google Trends to make 5 “data-vids” about the Women’s World Cup: organizing the tournament, tournament firsts, USWNT, semifinalists, and a tournament recap.
#stuffwelove at The Pudding
Here’s also some special links that are regularly shared on our Friends of The Pudding slack-channel (get access via Patreon)!
Singapore in Colour — The Straits Times extracted color from thousands of photos to find each neighborhood’s distinct palette
Searching for Maura — The Washington Post uses a scrolling graphic novel to tell the story of how part of Maura’s brain ended up in the Smithsonian’s collection
The grass courts are now in session — Reuters explains the grass courts at Wimbledon with tennis embroidery (think the LaCoste’s crocodile logo)
“Let Me Just Interrupt You” — An academic paper that estimates gender effects in Supreme Court oral arguments
How Hip-Hop Changed the English Language Forever — The New York Times unpacks five words (dope, woke, cake, wildin’ and ghost) that show rap’s unique linguistic influence
Is Beyoncé Secretly a Rapper? — A project from studio Two-N asks an important question about Bey’s renaissance
Mining Massive Datasets — A full course from Stanford University available on YouTube
Thank you subscribers! And take care! — Jan