poll is it finally time to admit Taylor has surpassed Madonna?

[Buffy]

Yes. Who’s Madonna?

[RobynYoBank]

A few years from now Taylor will surpass MJ and The Beatles and people will still be trying it with Madonna and Britney Spears 

[Digitalism]

If you have to ask the question every week she hasn't

[Mornings]

Yes Taylor has been able to capitalize on her whiteness better than anyone else. She does not have the cultural impact Madonna has had on music or aesthetics and never will. 

[airplane]

31 minutes ago, Artistofthedecade said:

This "reach" argument makes zero sense when Taylor is getting 100M daily streams from +20M unique listeners. 

 

Madonna's highest selling album sold like 20-30M albums. That’s equal to Taylor's daily listeners so acting like Taylor's success comes from same people buying 3652624 copies is just nonsensical. 

There’s a difference in having 20M unique listeners streaming your song on their devices on rotation like bots everyday and having 20M unique people physically purchasing your albums. Madonna had that while one single taylor stan takes entire carts of cd’s home from Target. Not the same or comparable.  

 

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by airplane

[secretgarden]

Surpassed in sales? Maybe, but that won't make her half as legendary

Edited October 29, 2023 by secretgarden

[iam1925]

Yes. The GP already moved on from Madonna while the ATRL gays are living in the past. Taylor is the queen of music atm, obliterating records, critical claim and already a billionaire. Did Madonna become a billionaire from music revenues? I don't think so 

[What_A_Mess]

Not yet. Madonna has had a long career and  has more albums/units sold. Her position at the top is well deserved. Hopefully Taylor will be able to outsell her and everyone else in the future.

[LOTF]

18 minutes ago, istan4badgalriri said:

Madonna sold all those records while being a controversial, polarizing figure and a risk-taker. She never cared to soften or tone down her image and her music in order to cater to the masses and sell albums. Yet, still became the best-selling female artist of all time. That’s why she’ll always be thee queen of pop

This part cannot be stressed enough.

 

Obviously miss Swift is gonna be consumed the way she is being consumed. She's barely ruffling any feathers of the establishment. Her craft is basically G rated so everyone can consume.

Madonna is not like that and never will be

[WildHeart]

2 minutes ago, airplane said:

There’s a difference in having 20M unique listeners streaming your song on their devices and having 20M unique people physically purchasing your albums. Madonna had that while one single taylor stan takes entire carts of cd’s home from Target. Not the same or comparable.  

Taylor's yearly "pure sales" barely make 10% of her total units. Duplicate sales probably make few percentage of sales at most so again, this argument is nonsencial. 

 

Both of them had reach as wide as possible. 

[LOTF]

19 minutes ago, Punky Rooster said:

Sure, people are listening to Taylor a lot at the moment, but people also listened to Madonna a lot too, it just wasn't recorded - she sold hundreds of millions of albums full of tracks that have probably been listened to many many billions of times, but we can't tell.

This also cannot be stressed enough

[SignificantOther]

Free streams will never have the same worth as physical sales. And in that aspect Miss Swift will never compete with the Queen of Pop. 

[Shelter]

Stop comparing sales to streaming. The same people listening to an album for months/years is not as impressive as actual sales. It never will be. There is no way to do a fair comparison. 

Don’t at me with chartmasters BS. 

[WildHeart]

 

Grandpas are exposing themselves 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Artistofthedecade

[Joyride]

I love Taylor to a t but this is just not realistic

[dawnettakins]

I don't think so.

 

Most sales, streams, etc =/= Best

 

Also doesn't mean "biggest" either like that's such a loaded term. Shouldn't impact and talent at some point matter, particularly more than sales, numbers, and $$$?

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by dawnettakins

[Miss Show Business]

Madonna, sweetie...

 

Madonna has more cultural impact and influence than Taylor will ever have.

[Storm653]

41 minutes ago, LittleStarmen said:

Taylor will be forgotten by the next 5 years and will be more akin to the spice girls. a big phenomemon that society has moved on

People said this verbatim back in 2016. Literally the same exact thing. #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty

 

Now, she's 17 years in and not slowing down at all. 

 

The Spice Girls has a 3 album run in their whole career so this is a garbage comparison. The fact that Taylor managed to get her consensus "worst" album(Lover) to become a cult classic to many fans today means that she's only really expanding her base. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Storm653

[Eternium]

43 minutes ago, istan4badgalriri said:

Madonna sold all those records while being a controversial, polarizing figure and a risk-taker. She never cared to soften or tone down her image and her music in order to cater to the masses and sell albums. Yet, still became the best-selling female artist of all time. That’s why she’ll always be thee queen of pop

Such a valid point. 6 years into their careers, Taylor Swift was causing controversy for excluding black people from her video set in Africa (“Wildest Dreams)” and Madonna was causing controversy for kissing a black man and addressing how people of color are unfairly targeted for crimes they didn’t commit (“Like A Prayer).”

 

It’s like comparing Ed Sheeran to Michael Jackson.

[.Odyssey.]

 

Taylor fans would never understand how and why Madonna has made more impact than her. I've come to accept that there are people who either "get" Madonna or don't...the ones who don't will never be convinced that Madonna simply cannot be surpassed culturally by Taylor. Without Madonna, the concept of Taylor's "eras" wouldn't even exist. 

 

Taylor is a business machine. Madonna is an artist. There's an extreme difference between the two, and Taylor will never come close to what Madonna brought to pop music.

[Storm653]

15 minutes ago, dawnettakins said:

I don't think so.

 

Most sales, streams, etc =/= Best

 

Also doesn't mean "biggest" either like that's such a loaded term. Shouldn't impact and talent at some point matter, particularly more than sales, numbers, and $$$?

 

So.......are you implying that Madonna is called the Queen of Pop because she's the most talented pop star ever as opposed to her factually being the best selling female act of all time?

 

I mean...I get what you're trying to say but Madonna's rep didn't necessarily come from mere talent. Everybody knows that there's vocalists, dancers, and songwriters that run circles around her. It's just that Madge had a decent balance and was a Juggernaut in global success. 

 

You can't claim "sales don't matter at all. Just talent" while ignoring that Madge's massive worldwide sales and chart success play a huge role in her being the Queen Of Pop. 

 

Edit: Influence counts too obviously but Whitney and Janet influenced Pop Music just as much as Madonna while dropping classics and nobody calls them the "Queen Of Pop." 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Storm653

[NEX]

1 hour ago, 45seconds said:

Madonna did NOT sell most of her albums in the “peak” of music industry. The music industry sales peak happened in the late 90s-early 00s. Madonna’s biggest selling albums were sold in the 80s and first few years of the 90s. 

Then why most of the biggest selling albums of all time are from the 70s and 80s and 90s? 

 

Early 00s simply had the biggest first week sales due to a changing nature of marketing penetration. 

 

Also, are you implying that Madonna was peaking at a worse sales climate than Taylor?

 

Besides, comparing sales unit for unit is pointless. Taylor has several blockbuster albums that had insane longevity on charts, way above any average for a hit album in this day and age. I don't think Madonna had that many, if any. A lot of classic albums from that era are still charting to this day.

 

Let's also not forget that Taylor is literally charting her entire discography in many countries across the globe. Her level of chart success is truly unprecedented. If we're talking raw numbers she's already the biggest ever or at least in the Beatles league of domination and mania.

 

Impact and influence is topic for another discussion. Swifties are downplaying her success most of the time not to seem cocky.... but whew... it's out of this world 

[shookspeare]

yes, madonna may have more cultural impact but her music is unlistenable outside of her big hits

[LittleStarmen]

Madonna won again... we had the same threads 10 years ago with gaga and its not Madonna who is in vegas now....

 

 

[SignificantOther]

3 minutes ago, LittleStarmen said:

Madonna won again... we had the same threads 10 years ago with gaga and its not Madonna who is in vegas now....

 

 

Madonna will always be the blueprint.