celeb news Pollstar: Taylor Swift is biggest dominating artist in culture since prime MJ/Madonna

[byzantium]

1 minute ago, BrandNewBrandon said:

You aren't "big enough" because you don't have a cult doing what you tell them to?  

 

That has nothing to do with that. In fact, it has mostly to do with what kind of demo you appeal to. 

This would make sense if the Beatles, MJ, Madonna, and Elvis did not have strong fanbases at their peak.  You are just in denial about obvious truths.  

[BrandNewBrandon]

2 minutes ago, byzantium said:

This would make sense if the Beatles, MJ, Madonna, and Elvis did not have strong fanbases at their peak. 

Artists like Nicki Minaj and even Kylie Minogue have devoted fanbases  

 

Your statement is incorrect. 

[Headlock]

Brandon is acting brand new indeed, how are they still going 

[HappierJealousy]

1 hour ago, BrandNewBrandon said:

Okay we all get that she sold 40M in one year. But she released three albums in 12 months and all of them in different formats. Adele sold half of that with only one album. 

 

Taylor having the biggest year in streaming is irrelevant because the others didn't peak in the streaming era. Adele has sold more digital copies of 21 in a year than anyone in history. How is that less impressive? 

 

Again, she may have the biggest tour but touring overall doesn't dictate someone being the biggest artist of all time. The entire top 5 of all time tours are from 2022-23. 

 

Let's be honest here. What you're saying is having Taylor's fans buy three albums each in different variants is more impressive than 20M people buying one Adele album. 

 

Adele's peak year also should include her single sales, which are not counted in that total. Taylor's are. Adele sold 20M copies of her album and well over 20M of her singles (Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You, Set Fire to the Rain) but that just gets completely ignored by you guys 

Those “albums” of Taylor are re-recordings. Back to 2020 nobody expected them to smash. Most people expected a 150k debut for Fearless TV and then left the chart very soon. The facts that it’s till in the top 50 three years after release and those albums are more successful than most artists’s studio albums don’t mean they should be count/treated as studio album. They got less to zero promo and they are the exact proof of Taylor’s power not something you should use to drag her. If Adele released more albums during her prime period would she be more successful? Probably, and probably not, if frequent release = more success then any label will force their artist to release frequently. In the real world this never happens cause it is highly risky and could make you flop more rapidly if you don’t play it right. Being more productive is good quality that should be praised. Again, I don’t know what’s is your problem with those variants cause 80% of Taylor’s units are from streaming. Even you remove all of them Taylor is still moving more units in 2023 than any year of Adele. If you really want to play this game of “‘number of people buy the album” I can also compare the number of their Spotify monthly listeners, which mean they’re much more people have listened Taylor’s album than Adele’s; or the number of people going to the tour. But I do not, cause these are not important.

 

This debate with you is just a waste of the time atp. Cause you keep talking about the single albums success when we’re talking about the biggest peak, making fake assumptions of variants, or comparing album’s pure sales in digital era with album in streaming era. Taylor’s new peak in 2023 is a combination of Midnights/re-recording/tour/Cruel Summer. To comparing the artist peak you need to compare all things overall, including the tour. Mind you I’m not like you, so I won’t said Taylor had a bigger peak than Adele only because of the tour. Aside from the eras tour, Midnights is probably not even bigger than Fearless/Red, and for sure it’s not bigger than 1989. You can go out and start a poll asking if Taylor in Fearless/Red/1989 era is bigger than Taylor in 2023, then waiting people to laugh at you  

Edited December 8, 2023 by HappierJealousy

[WildHeart]

1 hour ago, BrandNewBrandon said:

And then they gaslight us into thinking she had 30M individual costumers in one year whereas Adele had 20M.

She had +30M individual consumers tho. She has +20M people listening her on Spotify daily. 

 

She had 250M users listening her at least one song on Spotify last year

 

 

In the physical era, 20M sales used to mean 20M individual people buying music. 

In the streaming era, it doesn't. Taylor didn't sell 40M albums. She sold 6-7M albums and received 40 Billion streams. 

40 Billion streams that came from at least 300M people who consumed her music. This is where your logic fails. 

 

 

If you wanna talk about "spending on artist", 14M people from the US tried to secure $100 tickets according to Ticketmasters. Globally, that number was well over 30M people. 

She additionally sold Eras film tickets to +15M so far. 

 

So which one is more impressive, selling $20 item to 30M people or selling $100 item to 30M people? 

 

 

 

There's a reason why Taylor is Person Of The Year while Adele wasn't even on the shortlist back then. 

[Klein]

1 hour ago, BrandNewBrandon said:

Most people bought one copy? Okay then but they bought ONE copy of THREE different albums  And you're comparing it to Adele who only had one album. 

Once again, you can't make the argument that 21 would have sold as much if she released 2 other albums. 21 longevity is partly due to the massive singles (Someone Like You and Set Fire To The Rain). If she released other albums, these singles would have not been released, i.e. 21 would not be anywhere as big.

 

Also, I don't know why you keep saying Adele sold 20M in 2011 when the numbers were around 15M. 25% inflation and for what? 

[Klein]

I really don't understand how you can compare:

- 2 monster hits (RITD/SLY) +1 moderate (SFTTR)

- 18M across her catalogue (15M for 21, 3M for 19)

- no tour

- decent cultural impact

 

to:

- 2 smash hits (AH/CS) + 2 moderate hits (Karma/IION)

- 40M units across her catalogue

- biggest tour of all time

- cultural impact so big she became the first entertainer ever to be POTY

 

and think the 1st is bigger. Be realistic. 

[Rep2000]

People keep saying Adele was bigger, and yet I don't see people demanding Adele to speak up about Middle East or politics, do they? 

Taylor is so relevant this year that people act like she can singlehandedly solve world peace (which is delusional), but still.

[Rep2000]

1 hour ago, Headlock said:

Brandon is acting brand new indeed, how are they still going 

The obsession, gurl, far too much 

 

Imagine if they listen to Adele as much as they try to claim Adele is bigger, then maybe her daily stream is not that low. 

[VioletsandRoses]

2 hours ago, Klein said:

I really don't understand how you can compare:

- 2 monster hits (RITD/SLY) +1 moderate (SFTTR)

- 18M across her catalogue (15M for 21, 3M for 19)

- no tour

- decent cultural impact

 

to:

- 2 smash hits (AH/CS) + 2 moderate hits (Karma/IION)

- 40M units across her catalogue

- biggest tour of all time

- cultural impact so big she became the first entertainer ever to be POTY

 

and think the 1st is bigger. Be realistic. 

A- In what world is SFTTR a moderate hit. It sold over 10m digital sales and has over a billion streams. Hit numbe one in the US and top 10 across the world. The moderate hits are  RHI locally and Turning Tables outside the US. Anti-Hero and Cruel Summer are only smashing in the anglosphere and a a few Asian countries. Their performance in big markets like France, Germany (AH did good not amazing here), Italy, Spain, etc isn’t that bright. Let alone compared to the 21 singles that were #1 basically everywhere. 
B- Catalog sales were barely a thing in the digital era because units didn’t exist. When was the last time a album got revived like 19? It went from 2m sold to 8.6m in total. Went from Peking outside the top 10 to making the top 20 year end 2 years in a row and outsold many smash albums like loud, born this way, teenage dream, red, etc. even make you feel my love and chasing pavements went from barely selling anything to almost 5m copies ww. She repeated the same thing with 25. 21 returned to the top 10 and 19 to the top 20 and had amazing longevity before streaming took off (which gives more longevity) 

[Klein]

12 minutes ago, VioletsandRoses said:

A- In what world is SFTTR a moderate hit. It sold over 10m digital sales and has over a billion streams. Hit numbe one in the US and top 10 across the world. The moderate hits are  RHI locally and Turning Tables outside the US. Anti-Hero and Cruel Summer are only smashing in the anglosphere and a a few Asian countries. Their performance in big markets like France, Germany (AH did good not amazing here), Italy, Spain, etc isn’t that bright. Let alone compared to the 21 singles that were #1 basically everywhere. 
B- Catalog sales were barely a thing in the digital era because units didn’t exist. When was the last time a album got revived like 19? It went from 2m sold to 8.6m in total. Went from Peking outside the top 10 to making the top 20 year end 2 years in a row and outsold many smash albums like loud, born this way, teenage dream, red, etc. even make you feel my love and chasing pavements went from barely selling anything to almost 5m copies ww. She repeated the same thing with 25. 21 returned to the top 10 and 19 to the top 20 and had amazing longevity before streaming took off (which gives more longevity) 

A- In 2011, SFTTR was just starting. It was still a moderate hit at this point. Became a smash through 2012. 

B- I understand the climates are different. But some of it is an advantage for Adele, other for Taylor (pure sales allow for unit accumulation much faster than streaming for example, though streaming allow for better longevity). I'm not sure why you're debating about 25 when what is argued is that Adele 2011 > Taylor 2023, which is false. 

 

Also, I completely agree that the streaming era is beneficial for Taylor's catalogue. That said, she's smashing on a scale not seen by ANYONE else. Not even Drake who's her closest competitor and with similar release frequency. 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Klein

[allforyou]

In terms of records sold she's only behind Madonna, Rihanna and Mariah and she's definitely the most successful female artist right now. I don't think she'll ever surpass Madonna though, she would need to sell more 100 million records in pure sales which is pretty impossible in this day and age.

[Klein]

11 minutes ago, allforyou said:

In terms of records sold she's only behind Madonna, Rihanna and Mariah and she's definitely the most successful female artist right now. I don't think she'll ever surpass Madonna though, she would need to sell more 100 million records in pure sales which is pretty impossible in this day and age.

And that's why no music organization (Billboard, IFPI, ARIA...) is using the records metric, because it makes no sense. 

 

If it did, it would mean no other artists in history would reach the success of Kesha for example, which is not realistic. 

[The Man Who]

 

[liam13]

4 hours ago, The Man Who said:

 

and you ruined it

[BrandNewBrandon]

21 hours ago, WildHeart said:

She had +30M individual consumers tho. She has +20M people listening her on Spotify daily. 

 

She had 250M users listening her at least one song on Spotify last year

 

20 hours ago, Klein said:

Once again, you can't make the argument that 21 would have sold as much if she released 2 other albums. 21 longevity is partly due to the massive singles (Someone Like You and Set Fire To The Rain). If she released other albums, these singles would have not been released, i.e. 21 would not be anywhere as big.

 

Also, I don't know why you keep saying Adele sold 20M in 2011 when the numbers were around 15M. 25% inflation and for what? 

 

22 hours ago, HappierJealousy said:

This is streaming eras and 80% of Taylor’s units come from streams globally. 

 

Since we're all adults, I think we can have a decent discussion.

 

There are several factors that are problematic in this discussion. One of them being that the 40M total units Taylor moved this year incorporates three albums and the performance of her singles (Anti-Hero + Cruel Summer) and then they are compared to Adele's sole ALBUM sales. 

 

According to the IFPI, in 2011 Adele sold 18.1 million copies of 21, 3 million copies of 19, Rolling In The Deep sold 8.1 million and Someone Like You sold 5 million. All of that along with the residual sales from her songs like Set Fire to the Rain and some singles off 19 give a total of 35 million units. She repeated a similar figure in 2012 with the same albums, something I doubt Taylor will do without releasing new albums. In 2009, Lady Gaga sold 5.9 million copies of The Fame, a whooping 9.8 million copies of Poker Face, 7.7 million copies of Just Dance and then she also had three other singles in Paparazzi and LoveGame. So her total units for 2009 were at 31 million. But at the end of that year, she released The Fame: Monster with Bad Romance which in 2010 alone sold almost 10 million copies, so another 1 million at least from that song should be added which would make the number 32 million units. 

 

So what we have is Taylor at 40M with three albums and its singles, Adele at 35 million units with two albums and two singles and Lady Gaga at 32 million with two albums and six singles. 

 

1. Taylor Swift - 40M units

2. Adele - 35M units

3. Lady Gaga 32M units

 

So far so good. However, and this is not even debatable and something that even Taylor's own fans acknowledge, Adele's 35M units and Lady Gaga's 32M units come mostly from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan since Latin America, the Middle East and much of Asia was DROWNING in illegal downloads and piracy. Even the IFPI acknowledges this in their yearly reports from 2011. There were MILLIONS of unaccounted for song downloads and we know how huge Adele and Lady Gaga were in Latin America, for example.

 

Taylor Swift is peaking at a time when legal music consumption can be track in nearly 100% of the world's markets. She gets legal numbers from basically every country since Spotify and YouTube are used legally and for free everywhere. And all of that is counted towards her units.

 

You can even read an interview with Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, from 2011 where he's talking about his platform. 

 

Millions upon millions people were downloading illegally songs to their music device and computers, whether it be from Limewire or a local service, and the IFPI even noted that during Gaga's reign in 2009 over 95% of music downloaded from the internet was illegal. It wasn't until streaming started to take off in 2012 (after Gaga's and Adele's peaks) that it started dropping: 

 

Quote

First and foremost, the rise of free music streaming services has sliced into the popularity of illegal music downloads. Half of the people polled who had stopped or cut back on their illegal downloads said they did so because of the increase in free and legal music streaming services.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/illegal-music-downloads-dropped-in-2012-says-report/

 

So this isn't because there's a problem with Taylor pulling 40M units in a year. It's a problem with claiming that her year was bigger than the years of Adele or Gaga and being ignorant to the different eras. You can not compare the streaming era where the IFPI can track legal music consumption from practically 100% of the global music market to the digital era where the IFPI could only track legal music consumption from 50% of the world.

 

Adele's 35M units and Gaga's 32M units would be adding MILLIONS of extra units had the IFPI been able to. So the main issue at hand is being totally ignorant to the facts that:

 

Adele sold 35M units from 50% of the world, Lady Gaga sold 32M units from 50% of the world, while Taylor is on track to sell 40M units from 100% of the world. And that is something you simply cannot deny because that would be downright unintelligent. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by BrandNewBrandon

[HappierJealousy]

2 hours ago, BrandNewBrandon said:

 

 

 

Since we're all adults, I think we can have a decent discussion.

 

There are several factors that are problematic in this discussion. One of them being that the 40M total units Taylor moved this year incorporates three albums and the performance of her singles (Anti-Hero + Cruel Summer) and then they are compared to Adele's sole ALBUM sales. 

 

According to the IFPI, in 2011 Adele sold 18.1 million copies of 21, 3 million copies of 19, Rolling In The Deep sold 8.1 million and Someone Like You sold 5 million. All of that along with the residual sales from her songs like Set Fire to the Rain and some singles off 19 give a total of 35 million units. She repeated a similar figure in 2012 with the same albums, something I doubt Taylor will do without releasing new albums. In 2009, Lady Gaga sold 5.9 million copies of The Fame, a whooping 9.8 million copies of Poker Face, 7.7 million copies of Just Dance and then she also had three other singles in Paparazzi and LoveGame. So her total units for 2009 were at 31 million. But at the end of that year, she released The Fame: Monster with Bad Romance which in 2010 alone sold almost 10 million copies, so another 1 million at least from that song should be added which would make the number 32 million units. 

 

So what we have is Taylor at 40M with three albums and its singles, Adele at 35 million units with two albums and two singles and Lady Gaga at 32 million with two albums and six singles. 

 

1. Taylor Swift - 40M units

2. Adele - 35M units

3. Lady Gaga 32M units

 

So far so good. However, and this is not even debatable and something that even Taylor's own fans acknowledge, Adele's 35M units and Lady Gaga's 32M units come mostly from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan since Latin America, the Middle East and much of Asia was DROWNING in illegal downloads and piracy. Even the IFPI acknowledges this in their yearly reports from 2011. There were MILLIONS of unaccounted for song downloads and we know how huge Adele and Lady Gaga were in Latin America, for example.

 

Taylor Swift is peaking at a time when legal music consumption can be track in nearly 100% of the world's markets. She gets legal numbers from basically every country since Spotify and YouTube are used legally and for free everywhere. And all of that is counted towards her units.

 

You can even read an interview with Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, from 2011 where he's talking about his platform. 

 

Millions upon millions people were downloading illegally songs to their music device and computers, whether it be from Limewire or a local service, and the IFPI even noted that during Gaga's reign in 2009 over 95% of music downloaded from the internet was illegal. It wasn't until streaming started to take off in 2012 (after Gaga's and Adele's peaks) that it started dropping: 

 

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/illegal-music-downloads-dropped-in-2012-says-report/

 

So this isn't because there's a problem with Taylor pulling 40M units in a year. It's a problem with claiming that her year was bigger than the years of Adele or Gaga and being ignorant to the different eras. You can not compare the streaming era where the IFPI can track legal music consumption from practically 100% of the global music market to the digital era where the IFPI could only track legal music consumption from 50% of the world.

 

Adele's 35M units and Gaga's 32M units would be adding MILLIONS of extra units had the IFPI been able to. So the main issue at hand is being totally ignorant to the facts that:

 

Adele sold 35M units from 50% of the world, Lady Gaga sold 32M units from 50% of the world, while Taylor is on track to sell 40M units from 100% of the world. And that is something you simply cannot deny because that would be downright unintelligent. 

Do you really know what is total units and SPS? 

Total units we discussed here is not adding singles sales and album sales together   I can’t believe I have argued with you all this time

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by HappierJealousy

[WildHeart]

3 hours ago, BrandNewBrandon said:

 

According to the IFPI, in 2011 Adele sold 18.1 million copies of 21, 3 million copies of 19, Rolling In The Deep sold 8.1 million and Someone Like You sold 5 million. All of that along with the residual sales from her songs like Set Fire to the Rain and some singles off 19 give a total of 35 million units. She repeated a similar figure in 2012 with the same albums, something I doubt Taylor will do without releasing new albums. In 2009, Lady Gaga sold 5.9 million copies of The Fame, a whooping 9.8 million copies of Poker Face, 7.7 million copies of Just Dance and then she also had three other singles in Paparazzi and LoveGame. So her total units for 2009 were at 31 million. But at the end of that year, she released The Fame: Monster with Bad Romance which in 2010 alone sold almost 10 million copies, so another 1 million at least from that song should be added which would make the number 32 million units. 

 

So what we have is Taylor at 40M with three albums and its singles, Adele at 35 million units with two albums and two singles and Lady Gaga at 32 million with two albums and six singles. 

 

1. Taylor Swift - 40M units

2. Adele - 35M units

3. Lady Gaga 32M units

When we talk about units, we mean album units, not record sales. 

 

 

10M digital song sales and 1.5B streams are equal to 1M album sales. This method aims to collect main consumption methods from different periods under a similar approach and produce comparable results. 

 

So when your numbers converted to album units, 

Taylor - 40M

Adele - 20M 

Gaga - 17M

 

And when it comes to reach, the gap is even bigger thanks to advantages of the streaming era. So your claim of Adele reaching more people doesn't make much sense. 

 

3 hours ago, BrandNewBrandon said:

Adele's 35M units and Gaga's 32M units would be adding MILLIONS of extra units had the IFPI been able to. So the main issue at hand is being totally ignorant to the facts that:

 

Adele sold 35M units from 50% of the world, Lady Gaga sold 32M units from 50% of the world, while Taylor is on track to sell 40M units from 100% of the world. And that is something you simply cannot deny because that would be downright unintelligent. 

It doesn't work like that. Streaming era made markets like LATAM and Asia bigger indeed but it made markets like Europe decline. 

 

Big albums used to sell 2 million or 3 million in the UK but they barely reach 1M nowadays. Big albums in Germany used to go 3 Platinum or even 5 Platinum but even biggest albums don't go multi platinum there nowadays. Same for France and rest of Europe. Same for Japan etc. 

 

Global music market for top music didn't grow like that. 

 

https://chartmasters.org/top-album/

Check yourself with different time periods. 

[Rep2000]

1 hour ago, HappierJealousy said:

Do you really know what is total units and SPS? 

Total units we discussed here is not adding singles sales and album sales together   I can’t believe I have argued with you all this time

 

His brain is forever brand new I'm afraid.

[Steve Johnson]

1 hour ago, HappierJealousy said:

Do you really know what is total units and SPS? 

Total units we discussed here is not adding singles sales and album sales together   I can’t believe I have argued with you all this time

 

 

3 minutes ago, Rep2000 said:

His brain is forever brand new I'm afraid.

By brand new method, Taylor has sold over 100 million units this year. 

[!ngwe]

She is a living legend, enjoy her music.

[Chartman]

Taylor had 139 Million CSPC on Jan 1st this year, she will leave the year at 184 Million+ CSPC. So an incredible 45 Million album units gained. Last year 23 Million album units had a reported value of $230 Million for Universal. So let‘s be a bit conservative here and say she generated $400 Million in revenue with her music for the company.

 

Now let us trust Pollstar’s team for a moment. The 66 concerts grossed $1.15 billion from ticket sales. $200 Million from merch sales on tour and probably a conservative $50 Million estimate for webshop merch sales.

 

Guiness World records confirmed the $250 Million gross for her movie.

 

If she has partnerships (Capital One?) this would also add to revenue gains of her brand.

 

Over $2 billion generated as a brand is a crazy peak. A year like a massive entire career. Person of the year 2023.

[CaptainMusic]

On 12/8/2023 at 4:47 AM, WildHeart said:

She had +30M individual consumers tho. She has +20M people listening her on Spotify daily. 

 

She had 250M users listening her at least one song on Spotify last year

 

 

In the physical era, 20M sales used to mean 20M individual people buying music. 

In the streaming era, it doesn't. Taylor didn't sell 40M albums. She sold 6-7M albums and received 40 Billion streams. 

40 Billion streams that came from at least 300M people who consumed her music. This is where your logic fails. 

 

You’ve made some points but you completely ignore piracy, which isn’t anywhere near as big now as it was back in the early 2010s.

 

Many casual streamers of Taylor like myself would’ve pirated her music just like we did Adele’s back then. You can’t just compare the reach of pure sales (which were miles bigger than anyone’s else) and streaming  

 

Radio had a much bigger audience than now too, there’s no way to know how many people were actually consuming Adele’s music like you can see now with Taylor. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by CaptainMusic

[halcyonday]

Taylor Swift IS the biggest female artist of all time.

[BrandNewBrandon]

21 hours ago, WildHeart said:

When we talk about units, we mean album units, not record sales. 

 

 

10M digital song sales and 1.5B streams are equal to 1M album sales. This method aims to collect main consumption methods from different periods under a similar approach and produce comparable results. 

 

So when your numbers converted to album units, 

Taylor - 40M

Adele - 20M 

Gaga - 17M

 

And when it comes to reach, the gap is even bigger thanks to advantages of the streaming era. So your claim of Adele reaching more people doesn't make much sense. 

 

It doesn't work like that. Streaming era made markets like LATAM and Asia bigger indeed but it made markets like Europe decline. 

 

Big albums used to sell 2 million or 3 million in the UK but they barely reach 1M nowadays. Big albums in Germany used to go 3 Platinum or even 5 Platinum but even biggest albums don't go multi platinum there nowadays. Same for France and rest of Europe. Same for Japan etc. 

 

Global music market for top music didn't grow like that. 

 

https://chartmasters.org/top-album/

Check yourself with different time periods. 

Thank you for a nice, elegant and educational response. 

 

But I'd have to disagree about the Europe part. No matter what big decline album sales have had in Europe, LATAM and ASIA along with Eastern Europe EXPLODED after streaming took off so all those three territories make up for whatever loss Europe has had. 

 

None of it neglects that Gaga and Adele's peaks weren't measured in half of the world accurately, especially their single sales. 

Edited December 10, 2023 by BrandNewBrandon