Gaga Vs. Taylor: Battle of the Impact™ Round 1

[Eternium]

49 minutes ago, The Music Industry said:

How can you possibly say Gaga had a bigger peak when Taylor during the Eras Era (late 2022-2024) has moved more units than Gaga during her entire 16 year-old career combined? Then you have the audacity to say Gaga as the answer is objective and clear as day...?

 

Let's be serious here

Easily. The Fame + Monster (Gaga's peak) is bigger than Taylor's biggest era, 1989 + TV. 
 

Moving units in the streaming era isn't as impressive because fans can just open multiple browsers and pull in 20k+ streams a day. As a K-pop stan, we see the top boy groups do it every day to inflate their numbers. And even in Western music, Morgan Wallen is having a bigger decade than Michael Jackson or Elvis ever managed - he's over 18.325M albums just from two releases this decade. Unregulated streaming has inflated the market massively because all impressions are now translated as sales.
 

Taylor is big right now, but you're not going to convince anyone that TTPD: Anthology is her peak. Especially when 1989 had two monster smashes followed by three big hits, all of which were bigger than Fortnight and ICDIWABH.

[DevilsRollTheDice]

8 minutes ago, Eternium said:

Easily. The Fame + Monster (Gaga's peak) is bigger than Taylor's biggest era, 1989 + TV. 
 

Moving units in the streaming era isn't as impressive because fans can just open multiple browsers and pull in 20k+ streams a day. As a K-pop stan, we see the top boy groups do it every day to inflate their numbers. And even in Western music, Morgan Wallen is having a bigger decade than Michael Jackson or Elvis ever managed - he's over 18.325M albums just from two releases this decade. Unregulated streaming has inflated the market massively because all impressions are now translated as sales.
 

Taylor is big right now, but you're not going to convince anyone that TTPD: Anthology is her peak. Especially when 1989 had two monster smashes followed by three big hits, all of which were bigger than Fortnight and ICDIWABH.

If moving more units was easier in the streaming era, other artists would be doing it too. They aren't. No one has any era moving remotely close, even in the same conversation, even in the same stratosphere, than the Eras Era. Taylor's biggest era is the Eras Era. It is beyond a single album. She is the only entertainer to win Time's Person of the Year EVER. The Eras Tour is the highest grossing tour EVER (even adjusted for inflation). She sold more units in a single year than anyone EVER by a WIDE margin. Cope!

 

MW nor any of the k pop acts will end with numbers close to Taylor's numbers or to challenge legacy runs. 

Edited 2 hours ago by DevilsRollTheDice

[Smarticle]

Gaga for all

 

[DevilsRollTheDice]

Like, Gaga's career is also closer to the start of the streaming era than Taylor's. If this imagined advantage was real, she'd have more of a justification to have it and yet 

 

Taylor moving more than Gaga's career units in the last couple of years is more than enough to shut this comparison down (same goes for every contemporary act). 

Edited 2 hours ago by DevilsRollTheDice

[byzantium]

The next generation of artists resemble Taylor much more than they resemble Gaga.  So I guess Taylor wins this one.  

[Doctor Dick]

PEAK: Tie. Lady Gaga's peak was bigger in Europe, Taylor's is bigger in the US and Canada. Taylor has Australia with Gaga a close second while Gaga has Latin America. In Asia I'd say Taylor wins but then Gaga wins in Japan. Africa is Gaga's. 

 

INFLUENCE: Gaga influenced the the entire music scene making even rap and latin acts go the EDM route and even collaborate with EDM. Weird fashion was in for many acts and even the EDM scene is crediting Gaga for radio embracing it in the early 2010s. She also was the first to use social media as a powerful tool for promo. Taylor has a slew of singer-songwriter females that are clearly inspired by her. It's a tie. 

 

SUCCESS: Taylor as she's won more prestigious awards and even sold more records overall. 

 

TALENT: Gaga. She can sing and write a good song if she wants to. She can also act. I know Taylor is regarded as one of the best songwriters but performance-wise Gaga can outsing and outact her. 

 

FANBASE: Little Monsters were the most powerful fandom in the beginning of the 2010s, Swifties are now. Gaga still has a chokehold on the LGBTQ+ community while Taylor is the favorite artist of a large chunk of women. 

 

WINNER: Tie. 

[Loca]

Gaga clears

[Doctor Dick]

45 minutes ago, DevilsRollTheDice said:

Like, Gaga's career is also closer to the start of the streaming era than Taylor's. If this imagined advantage was real, she'd have more of a justification to have it and yet 

 

Taylor moving more than Gaga's career units in the last couple of years is more than enough to shut this comparison down (same goes for every contemporary act). 

As already mentioned as a reply from @Eternium to @The Music Industry counting overall units moved in the streaming era is unfair to digital artists. Not only does Morgan Wallen have a bigger peak in this metric than Michael Jackson but the streaming units are from every continent and county in the world whereas Gaga peaked in the digital era where music consumption stats and figures for singles and albums were unavailable in Latin America (singles), Eastern Europe (singles), China (singles + albums) and Africa (singles + albums). Remember we're talking about peaks here. Gaga lost a lot of units from those territories that were flooded with illegal downloads and piracy, as was the US and western markets btw but to a much lessor extent. But still, in every part of the world there were units lacking in one way or another. During Taylor's peak she's got legal units from everywhere. You can't dispute that. There's not a single part of the world where her yearly album units aren't taken from. You cannot simply ignore that.

 

What's even more impressive in Gaga's case is that her European metrics for single charts and album sales from TFM even when taking half of Europe away for singles because of Eastern Europe is still above Taylor's peak for Midnights and TTPD. Europe definitely stanned Gaga harder during her peak than Taylor during hers. Japan is Gaga as well and while I will give Taylor the edge for Asia as a whole, you have to remember that stats from Gaga's peak in Asia are unavailable because of illegal piracy and lack of charts. Africa as well. In Latin America is the same problem. One can only assume one was bigger than the other there but the digital era stats are lackluster because of piracy. So overall, the units measurement is just biased towards artists that are peaking in the streaming era and should be considered. I myself would put both of their peaks at about the same level. I think for some of you Taylor's seems bigger because most of the media outlets that provide this are US based and Taylor's peak is much much bigger than Gaga's in America. But then you hear people from Europe who claim she isn't as big as Gaga was because they live in Europe and have witnessed how the GP reacted to both and how many hits and sales each had. It's a tie I'd say. 

[RihannaLoverrr]

PEAK: Taylor. Gaga had a HUGE peak, probably the second biggest to Taylor's but Taylor is just on another level at the moment. 

INFLUENCE: Again, 10 years ago I would've said Gaga but you can see Taylors influence on so many of the newer artists more than you can Gaga's. 

SUCCESS: Taylor clears

TALENT: Gaga 

FANBASE: Taylor

WINNER: Taylor 

[Doctor Dick]

@DevilsRollTheDice @Eternium @The Music Industry @burninredhot  @Smarticle @Loca    

 

NOT me writing about how it's a tie and then watch this and check the map: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=taylor swift,lady gaga&hl=en

 

It's a TIE even down to the map. 

[Devin]

tie but gaga > toilet

 

[DevilsRollTheDice]

13 minutes ago, Doctor Dick said:

As already mentioned as a reply from @Eternium to @The Music Industry counting overall units moved in the streaming era is unfair to digital artists. Not only does Morgan Wallen have a bigger peak in this metric than Michael Jackson but the streaming units are from every continent and county in the world whereas Gaga peaked in the digital era where music consumption stats and figures for singles and albums were unavailable in Latin America (singles), Eastern Europe (singles), China (singles + albums) and Africa (singles + albums). Remember we're talking about peaks here. Gaga lost a lot of units from those territories that were flooded with illegal downloads and piracy, as was the US and western markets btw but to a much lessor extent. But still, in every part of the world there were units lacking in one way or another. During Taylor's peak she's got legal units from everywhere. You can't dispute that. There's not a single part of the world where her yearly album units aren't taken from. You cannot simply ignore that.

 

What's even more impressive in Gaga's case is that her European metrics for single charts and album sales from TFM even when taking half of Europe away for singles because of Eastern Europe is still above Taylor's peak for Midnights and TTPD. Europe definitely stanned Gaga harder during her peak than Taylor during hers. Japan is Gaga as well and while I will give Taylor the edge for Asia as a whole, you have to remember that stats from Gaga's peak in Asia are unavailable because of illegal piracy and lack of charts. Africa as well. In Latin America is the same problem. One can only assume one was bigger than the other there but the digital era stats are lackluster because of piracy. So overall, the units measurement is just biased towards artists that are peaking in the streaming era and should be considered. I myself would put both of their peaks at about the same level. I think for some of you Taylor's seems bigger because most of the media outlets that provide this are US based and Taylor's peak is much much bigger than Gaga's in America. But then you hear people from Europe who claim she isn't as big as Gaga was because they live in Europe and have witnessed how the GP reacted to both and how many hits and sales each had. It's a tie I'd say. 

This is still ignoring very important elements like the Eras Tour when it comes to the peak conversation. The Eras Tour is the biggest tour in Europe ever. We can even directly compare it to 2020 tours with other artists like Gaga and Beyonce. This is also weighting each peak and continent equally when that isn't really how the music industry works. 
 

You're acknowledging Taylor's specific advantages for calculating units but disregarding the obvious advantages of legacy acts. It's hard to measure which advantage is more meaningful, but the best way to do it is to look at Taylor's dominance compared to her current peers. The commercial gap between her and her peers is bigger than any other peak ever. Billboard has acknowledged this many times. 

[John Slayne]

swifties trying to delude themselves and us into thinking Taylor Swift is more talented 

[shyboi]

48 minutes ago, byzantium said:

The next generation of artists resemble Taylor much more than they resemble Gaga.  So I guess Taylor wins this one.  

 

that's only one of the metrics, watr? 

 

PEAK:

INFLUENCE:

SUCCESS:

TALENT:

FANBASE:

WINNER:

[Doctor Dick]

19 minutes ago, DevilsRollTheDice said:

This is still ignoring very important elements like the Eras Tour when it comes to the peak conversation. The Eras Tour is the biggest tour in Europe ever. We can even directly compare it to 2020 tours with other artists like Gaga and Beyonce. This is also weighting each peak and continent equally when that isn't really how the music industry works. 
 

You're acknowledging Taylor's specific advantages for calculating units but disregarding the obvious advantages of legacy acts. It's hard to measure which advantage is more meaningful, but the best way to do it is to look at Taylor's dominance compared to her current peers. The commercial gap between her and her peers is bigger than any other peak ever. Billboard has acknowledged this many times. 

I do think the vastly different points they are in their career is what makes the difference for the touring aspect. I do agree Taylor's tour is massive and part of her massive peak but she's also a legacy act at the same time. Gaga wasn't and despite having hit after hit, you won't exactly be able to get a stadium crowd for multiple nights in a country because you need more than two songs for the average person to like to want to spend their coins on an expensive concert ticket. And even then in some countries during her debut headlining tour, Gaga did arenas multiple times in various countries that could easily have been a stadium. That's unheard of during a breakout era. But there's more devotion in Taylor's peak, that's for sure, yet when it comes to popularity and peak in commercial success we HAVE TO take into account the advantages and lack thereof for streaming vs. digital. This is not about playlists and other yadayada, it's about units missing from Gaga's peak and she's still in the conversation. I still say it's a tie for both of them. Look at the link I posted, it's practically uncanny. 

Edited 50 minutes ago by Doctor Dick

[R.E.M.]

PEAK: Taylor Swift (1-0)

INFLUENCE: Gaga (1-1)

SUCCESS: Taylor Swift (2-1)

TALENT: Lady Gaga (2-2)

FANBASE: Pre-Folklore, Taylor; in 2024 neither (2.5-2)

WINNER: Taylor Swift

 

I contemplated assigning a bonus point to Gaga for talent because she sings, acts, writes/produces, and her dancing pre-injury was really good.

[bync]

Gaga and it's not even remotely close.