16 minutes ago, Blue Rose said:

It will always annoy me how troll threads can be made about Bey and they remain open (im talking about that Facebook thread.) Like who uses Facebook trolls as a source anyway? 
Meanwhile anything shady against others will get you banned. It was the same thing with that Spotify thread which was filled with lies. Flamebait Beyoncé threads are the bread and butter of this forum, and the mods can say they are fair, but it’s not true.

Yeah the mods are biased. They are closing any negative Taylor threads. All the stupid twitter threads they let go on and on for Bey. 

Bey’s fanbase is much older than Taylor’s. If you look at that target video, it’s all very young fans buying the album. 

3 hours ago, Devin said:

Reality is Taylor is white and has no niche audience + shes admires Bey and see how she can shake the music industry. So at times she mimics that formula, her delivery will always come off bigger cause she like to commercially capitalize. But Bey will always be bigger in the cultural impact dept.

DING DING DING! ?️ 

 

folklore and evermore would not have happened if it had not been for the BEYONCÉ album. Taylor was able to look at what Bey did years earlier and did the same ‘surprise release’ thing but in a much more calculated way.

lol

17 minutes ago, Shelter said:

Bey’s fanbase is much older than Taylor’s. If you look at that target video, it’s all very young fans buying the album. 

A lot of Taylor's fans are teenage girls/boys who's experiencing heartbreak and their first love. At least that's what I see from people around me. Y'all really think teenagers can relate to songs like Independent Women, Single Ladies, Run The Worlds, Formation or Partition? 

 

Taylor is just too big and no one can compete with her, B will never, not even Rihanna. Rihanna back in the days couldn't even touch B's physical album sales with all the hits. However, this does not change the fact that B is mismanaging her album (the fact that she could debut with 400-500K if vinyls were ready). Now for Act II I hope she changed her strategy because the Hives won't fall for the boxset tricks again, I feel sorry for the Hives who spent all their money to buy all four sets just for the ugly T-Shirt. 

1 hour ago, Blue Rose said:

It will always annoy me how troll threads can be made about Bey and they remain open (im talking about that Facebook thread.) Like who uses Facebook trolls as a source anyway? 
Meanwhile anything shady against others will get you banned. It was the same thing with that Spotify thread which was filled with lies. Flamebait Beyoncé threads are the bread and butter of this forum, and the mods can say they are fair, but it’s not true.

I'd say everybody gets it bad honestly. Gaga in particular when it comes to troll threads.

 

Ontop of that most comments are pretty positive in that thread, which tends to be the case for Beyoncé's troll threads. Most people can admit she's talented.

Lies, a lot of Taylor’s fan base are millennials like her in her 30’s not just teens. She’s doing it right and having her music long lasting for a younger generation to appreciate her on top of not alienating her core base. 
 

Also, I hate when people hate to admit the obvious to say “Beyoncé isn’t for the masses” is dismissive. Billie Eillish has a AOTY win over over Beyoncé at 17/18. 

Edited October 22, 20223 yr by sillycilla

There's no point of comparing Taylor to Beyoncé, she's really in a league of her own.

 

Taylor has really managed to secure probably the most dedicated fanbase in history

 

I'm not mad though because Taylor is for the most part unproblematic and I've noticed most of her fans on here actually like Beyoncé. 

 

I've realized they're going at it with Monsters more these days anyway, but who hasn't.

3 hours ago, Devin said:

Not we back on the Taylor subject again. 
 

Reality is Taylor is white and has no niche audience + shes admires Bey and see how she can shake the music industry. So at times she mimics that formula, her delivery will always come off bigger cause she like to commercially capitalize. But Bey will always be bigger in the cultural impact dept.

Exactly

2 minutes ago, sillycilla said:

Lies, a lot of Taylor’s fan base are millennials like her in her 30’s not just teens. She’s doing it right and having her music long lasting for a younger generation to appreciate her on top of not alienating her core base. 
 

Also, I hate when people hate to admit the obvious to say “Beyoncé isn’t for the masses” is dismissive. Billie Eillish has a AOTY win over over Beyoncé at 17/18. 

Taylor really did a great job of securing a loyal base by basically becoming their "friend". She was inviting them into her home for listening sessions and playing around with Easter eggs and the like for years. It works for her but not everybody has the time for that

3 minutes ago, sillycilla said:

Lies, a lot of Taylor’s da base are millennials like her in her 30’s not just teens. She’s doing it right and having her music long lasting for a younger generation to appreciate her on top of not alienating her core base. 
 

Also, I hate when people hate to admit the obvious to say “Beyoncé isn’t for the masses” is dismissive. Billie Eillish has a AOTY win over over Beyoncé at 17/18. 

The comparinsons those are white women....who will always have a easier appeal to white and asian audiences its just the way it is.... nobody says Beyonce isnt for the masses but its just a different appeal and B is older and ofc Billie has AOTY over Beyonce for a certain reason. Yall make no sense im tired

2 minutes ago, Punch said:

Billie has AOTY over Beyonce for a certain reason. Yall make no sense im tired

Because Billie, Adele and Taylor actually campaign for them unlike Beyonce. 

It’s just so predictable that Adele and Bey will have to go up against each other yet again. Neither of them release for years and then when they finally do, it just happens to be in the same eligibility period. Do they enjoy it?

19 minutes ago, sillycilla said:

Lies, a lot of Taylor’s fan base are millennials like her in her 30’s not just teens. She’s doing it right and having her music long lasting for a younger generation to appreciate her on top of not alienating her core base. 
 

Also, I hate when people hate to admit the obvious to say “Beyoncé isn’t for the masses” is dismissive. Billie Eillish has a AOTY win over over Beyoncé at 17/18. 

There is no “lies”. Her main fanbase Imo is teens and those in their early 20’s. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have fans of all ages. 

I think there is value of comparing Bey and Taylor's strategies and results; but it MUST be noted that at the end of the day it is unfair comparison. At the end of the day, Taylor is f*cking massive. She is literally the biggest artist of the century, and is on pace to end up biggest female artist of all time (IDC for your anecdotes or who "feels" better, 1 that's besides the point, 2 the numbers support my statement).

 

With that being said, there a lot of reasons in their career decisions and marketing that make the 2 see different results, but I want to focus on 2 driving ones:

#1 Release schedule. This is pretty self-explanatory so I won't explain much, just look at how in 3 years Taylor went from a 50M Spotify debut with Lover to 180M for midnights  Her constant releases move was genius, and proved overexposure is something that can be avoided. Good news is, Bey has potential to use this strategy with the Acts (but if she handles each Act like how she did Renaissance then...)

 

#2 How they market themselves. Now I could write an essay on this aspect, particularly Taylor's choice but ain't nobody got time for this on ATRL. Basically, Taylor markets herself (Taylor Swift the person) as your best friend, Bey markets herself (Bey the person) as a God/Queen (your deity). Both marketing strategies can result in cult-like devoted fan bases, but honestly the best friend strategy is far more appealing to the masses, especially Gen Z (which speaks to Taylor's appeal for them). It forms the deepest kind of parasocial relationships. Taylor stans really think they are good best friends with Taylor and know her personally. Her personal lyrics aide this feeling. I am in NO WAY saying this is what Bey should do, in fact I think it can be extremely toxic and draining which is why Taylor seems to now be doing this strategy more distantly and more calculated than she did before (literally used to let fans come to her house for listening sessions )  I also think Bey could not play the role well, but it is a genius marketing strategy that really pays off like no other if done well.

 

 

From these 2 reasons, if I were working on Parkwood I would suggest the following:
- Release more frequently (as I said the acts are a perfect idea), but if that's not feasible then make sure it feels like each album era doesn't die out after the first 2 weeks...

- Make Bey "the person" more engaged with fans. I put 'the person' in quotes on purpose, because in reality it would obviously be her team, but the results are the same. She does NOT have to be going live on IG or inviting fans to her house to achieve this. Simple things such as a) "natural" looking social media posts, more specifically TikToks (right now her TikTok feed is pretty bad with heavily edited videos, for example the vinyl video would've been 100% more effective had it just been her walking into the store and talking to staff, smiling and signing. This personifies Bey way more, and is essentially what she did irl either way, but actually show it) or b) videos of Bey herself explaining her work (does not even have to be an interview, can be pre-recorded and uploaded on her accord).

The aforementioned suggestions are easily feasible for Bey to do and would NOT make her seem of "lower status" (which lbr I think is her main issue with doing traditional promo and what not). She would maintain the same amount of respect, if not gain more.

9 minutes ago, Shelter said:

There is no “lies”. Her main fanbase Imo is teens and those in their early 20’s. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have fans of all ages. 

People have said Taylor's fanbase is teens since her breakout in 2008, those teens are in their 30s now sis 

 

She does have Gen Z appeal, but a fairly LARGE majority of her fanbase is young millennials 

let's be real, Taylor is a white woman that makes pretty vanilla music and has a very safe/ inoffensive image. of course her numbers are going to be bigger than Bey's. she's very transparent about her love of commercial success, which isn't a bad thing, it just is what it is.

 

but i don't think stats should be the end all be all for artists. bey has had huge commercial impact and clearly influenced the way the music industry has operated this past decade, which is difficult to get, not everyone has that to their credit. 

Again Taylor has no niche audience. Meaning that its easier for younger fans to like her material and maintain her core fans. 

Artists with a niche audience (i.e. Bey, Britney, Gaga, Madonna, Billie) are more known/respected for they risks and cultural impacts. 
 

Artists with no niche audience (i.e. Taylor, Rihanna, Adele, Katy, Olivia) are more known for they commercial impacts. Which is why they stats are more impressive.

I’m mad this ***** isn’t posting her Halloween costumes anymore. Or the “Your B at ____” pics on her website. 

 

 

Oh! The wearable art gala is tonight! 

7 minutes ago, Devin said:

Again Taylor has no niche audience. Meaning that its easier for younger fans to like her material and maintain her core fans. 

Artists with a niche audience (i.e. Bey, Britney, Gaga, Madonna, Billie) are more known/respected for they risks and cultural impacts. 
 

Artists with no niche audience (i.e. Taylor, Rihanna, Adele, Katy, Olivia) are more known for they commercial impacts. Which is why they stats are more impressive.

Seriously?

14 minutes ago, Machete said:

I think there is value of comparing Bey and Taylor's strategies and results; but it MUST be noted that at the end of the day it is unfair comparison. At the end of the day, Taylor is f*cking massive. She is literally the biggest artist of the century, and is on pace to end up biggest female artist of all time (IDC for your anecdotes or who "feels" better, 1 that's besides the point, 2 the numbers support my statement).

Not going for this. And I'm not even being a defensive stan. 

 

There are tangible numbers that can't be taken away from Taylor. They are objectively impressive and put her on a path to legend status. Or at least legend of her time.

 

But, like you said (albeit for different reasons), they should never be compared head-on. It just doesn't work on any logical metric. 

 

Taylor is massive in large part to her palatability to a wide, broad, and (let's face it) White majority. It is what it is. 

 

Beyonce, on the other hand, is a Black woman making Black music who has cut through so many barriers to become this universal beacon to everyone of every race. The universal nature of her success, popularity, and reverence is actually unprecedented given how much Blackness and Black artists are generally marginalised and even when popular are still subjugated. Bey cut through that to sit at the top. Only MJ before her truly managed this and sustained it. The semantics of her success IMO actually mean more and thus her being legitimately bigger than Taylor culturally speaking is not a matter of "feeling" I'd argue it's objective fact. 

 

The easiest way of highlighting this is: when Ren dropped or when Beyonce does something major in general, it permeates every lane: mainstream, urban, international, niche audiences. It's everyone, of every race, everywhere. Maybe not necessarily buying, but...experiencing, talking about etc.

 

Looking at Taylor. She is about to open HUGE (over a million in sales), her success and noteworthiness IMO is hyper-represented in her specific lane: the mainstream, white majority. Not that it's determinative nor the sole yardstick of success, but there are huge mainstream Urban platform and consumers that have ZERO clue Taylor even dropped. It of course doesn't matter. because it's not her primary audience. But, when flipping it, there wasn't a mainstream (White) platform that wasn't talking about Ren when it dropped. 

 

Again, there is no neat, race-avoidant, nor truly fair way of comparing them commercially. So we probably shouldn't.

Taylor's fans are women, grown women in their 30s. I'm one of them. 

Plus kids don't care about lyrics. I was 9 year-old listening to Bey sing about someone paying her bills and leaving their girlfriend/boyfriend home to hook up in the club. 

 

It's also a mark of a singer if they can still get new fans although in this base, being a new fan gets looked down upon. The number of time you read here :"they must be new fans". Pfff. 

 

Anyway what was achieved this week should be celebrated. It does not matter who did. It means it's still possible. 

Let's be honest, white might help but 5 years ago, she was struggling on streaming but she kept releasing, pushing her music and caring. Adele is also white and "vanilla" so are most of the other girls. For a whole decade - because Taylor and Beyoncé decided to keep their music off Spotify - only men and a few streaming-era girls were striving, thriving. 

But she kept pushing, cared and a couple of albums later, boom she's on the verge of having maybe the biggest début of her career. 

 

Beyoncé can peak in the streaming era, she could achieve her biggest first week ever or her most successful album in the streaming era. It is possible. Now, will it happen? Not sure. Beyoncé just doesn't have that hunger and I'm not sure music is the priority at Parkwood. 

 

But streaming has somehow leveled the field for black and Latino artists, Drake has proved that, so did Bad Bunny. They're not white. The top streaming artists yearly in the US are usually filled with rappers, Taylor and Ariana had to elbow their way in. Ye is always in the top 10 most streamed ww. He debut with more than 100M doing barely anything and so did Kendrick. 

It might not be Bey because sadly the way she handles her music is not it but I think a black female singer and other black artists are going to raise to the occasion and achieve something tremendous in the streaming era. It might not to be on the level of their white counterparts, or maybe it will, after all Drake kept the record for a long time. Some black artists will achieve big things in this streaming era and I am excited about that. 

 

 

can she just release the visuals so this thread actually has something to talk about, we’ve been going in circles for months

4 minutes ago, Planet Mars said:

Seriously?

Bey having a more niche fanbase than Taylor? Yes.