Any surprises?

I, for one, am surprised to see that the common ATRL claim that CSPC advantages modern artists doesn't seem to pan out. Among the top 9, 6 acts debuted in the 90s or before. Notably, the 90s and 2000s were the peak of physical album sales and the absolute peak of album sales for individual acts. Among the top 5, only the outlier of Taylor Swift — the most consumed female artist in history — debuted this century. No artists who debuted after 2010 are yet featured. Of pop girls who debuted after 2010, only Billie Eilish — by far the most successful Gen-Z pop girl — is the only act remotely close to achieving even two 20 million selling albums. Olivia's sophomore effort has yet to cross 10 million units. Sabrina has never crossed 10 million units with any album. SZA is 10 million units away from having two 20 million sellers and Ariana has yet to collect a single 20 million seller. Thank U, Next is around 2 million units away. Her 2nd closest is 10 years old and over 6 million units away.

As for the albums that comprise this list, of the 26 featured, only 3 non-Taylor albums were released after 2010 including Loud (2010) and 21 (2011). Since 2010, only 14 female albums have crossed the 20 million mark worldwide. Nearly 1/3 of them are Taylor Swift albums.

Bear in mind Taylor will have at least 7 by the end of the year, with a high likelihood of 8. This will double Madonna's total.

Why is Taylor so unique relative to her 21st century peers? If Taylor was as advantaged as some users here claim, surely the list would be populated by other 21st century pop stars. Even stars who debuted along with Taylor who have released multiple blockbuster albums aren't close to crossing the threshold of just two 20 million+ sellers. Gaga's Born This Way is over 3 million units away 14 years after release and Katy's Prisim is nearly 4 million units away after 12 years.

EDIT: As the good sis @byzantium pointed out, Dua Lipa has already achieved this making her the only Gen Z pop girl to do so. But it is unlikely Dua will net a third. I think Billie will.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by DevilsRollTheDice

"Why is Taylor so unique relative to her 21st century peers"

Variants

Let's be honest here, out that list, she has the most. She has a huge group of fans that buy all versions, and they're all getting counted. It inflates her numbers, can't deny it.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by Patient Zero

Why are we using someone with 25k followers as a reliable source

1 minute ago, Patient Zero said:

"Why is Taylor so unique relative to her 21st century peers"

Variants

Let's be honest here, out that list, she has the most. She has a huge group of fans that buy all versions, and they're all getting counted.

Every peer of Taylor Swift sells variants of their albums, with Taylor often selling fewer vinyl variants than her peers. Vinyls are the best selling variants by far. She has not meaningfully increased her multimillion totals by selling 10k digital albums here and there to secure a number 1.

Additionally, the albums that have crossed 20 million units for Taylor are Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Lover. Only Speak Now needed TV units to cross 20 million. The remaining albums have a very small portion of their units coming from any sort of variant or none at all.

This is also true of reputation and folklore which will cross the threshold this year.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by DevilsRollTheDice

7 minutes ago, DevilsRollTheDice said:

Why is Taylor so unique relative to her 21st century peers? If Taylor was as advantaged as some users here claim, surely the list would be populated by other 21st century pop stars.

Taylor's advantage is that she's still able to move incredible amount of albums in the streaming era while also getting an incredible amount of streams. As well, someone like Billie Eilish was not around during the 2008-2014 era when digital song sales were at their peak. As we might say the 80s and 90s gave album sale advantages to Madonna, Whitney and Mariah, the digital sales era offers a big boost for the likes of Rihanna, Beyoncé and Taylor.

We can theorize why Taylor has been able to do this (namely highly relatable to her fans, innocuous/not controversial music able to appeal to wide demographics, and one of the best/most determined marketing rollouts of pop history specifically aimed at selling more and often more than one copy per fan), but I think a large factor has been her re-releases which boosted interest, sales and streams for a large part of her discography, and also created a cult-like appreciation of work while she continued to release new music.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by swissman

Rihanna will have five at some point

15 minutes ago, DevilsRollTheDice said:

by far the most successful Gen-Z pop girl — is the only act remotely close to achieving even two 20 million

Dua Lipa says hi.

Taylor will very soon have 8 albums. Midnights needs just 100k more units, Reputation needs about 700k, and Folklore is just a bit behind since it still needs 1.3 million units.

1 minute ago, byzantium said:

Dua Lipa says hi.

Oop, you're right. Clock that tea, sis.

Sorry to miss Lipa, a massive achievement. Though I doubt she'll be seeing 3.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by DevilsRollTheDice

10 minutes ago, Patient Zero said:

"Why is Taylor so unique relative to her 21st century peers"

Variants

Let's be honest here, out that list, she has the most. She has a huge group of fans that buy all versions, and they're all getting counted. It inflates her numbers, can't deny it.

4 minutes ago, swissman said:

Taylor's advantage is that she's still able to move incredible amount of albums in the streaming era while also getting an incredible amount of streams. Someone like Billie Eilish was not around during the 2008-2014 era when digital song sales were at their peak. As we might say the 80s and 90s gave album sale advantages to Madonna, Whitney and Mariah, the digital sales era offers a big boost for the likes of Rihanna, Beyoncé and Taylor.

We can theorize why Taylor has been able to do this (namely highly relatable to her fans, innocuous/not controversial music able to appeal to wide demographics, and one of the best/most determined marketing rollouts of pop history specifically aimed at selling more and often more than one copy per fan), but I think a large factor has been her re-releases which boosted interest, sales and streams for a large part of her discography, and also created a cult-like appreciation of work while she continued to release new music.

1 minute ago, Taylena said:

Excuses? I answered the question as asked by the OP.
And what exactly was the excuse? That Taylor sells a lot? That's basically what I said.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by swissman

6 minutes ago, swissman said:

Taylor's advantage is that she's still able to move incredible amount of albums in the streaming era while also getting an incredible amount of streams. As well, someone like Billie Eilish was not around during the 2008-2014 era when digital song sales were at their peak. As we might say the 80s and 90s gave album sale advantages to Madonna, Whitney and Mariah, the digital sales era offers a big boost for the likes of Rihanna, Beyoncé and Taylor.

We can theorize why Taylor has been able to do this (namely highly relatable to her fans, innocuous/not controversial music able to appeal to wide demographics, and one of the best/most determined marketing rollouts of pop history specifically aimed at selling more and often more than one copy per fan), but I think a large factor has been her re-releases which boosted interest, sales and streams for a large part of her discography, and also created a cult-like appreciation of work while she continued to release new music.

I think this is reasonable. It's undeniable that the rerecordings project lit a new fire under her project. But they were also a massive unknown and commercial risk. I think it's also safe to say that basically every other artist in the world would struggle to generate the same level (or even a close amount) of interest in a project like that.

Definitely true that it propelled her forward but more in the way that a smash era propels someone forward than a blueprint others could follow.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by DevilsRollTheDice

20 minutes ago, Patient Zero said:

"Why is Taylor so unique relative to her 21st century peers"

Variants

Let's be honest here, out that list, she has the most. She has a huge group of fans that buy all versions, and they're all getting counted. It inflates her numbers, can't deny it.

All those 20m sellers come from the 00s and 10s though. Back before she used variants.

The real reason is because she remained relevant in the 2020s and had a massive resurgence during Taymania that introduced her catalog to a new generation and pushed it significantly ahead of her peers.

12 minutes ago, DevilsRollTheDice said:

Sorry to miss Lipa, a massive achievement. Though I doubt she'll be seeing 3.

Why do you guys always count someone out just because they under perform? How many girls flopped then came back swinging? Hell half that list actually!

15 minutes ago, swissman said:

Taylor's advantage is that she's still able to move incredible amount of albums in the streaming era while also getting an incredible amount of streams. As well, someone like Billie Eilish was not around during the 2008-2014 era when digital song sales were at their peak. As we might say the 80s and 90s gave album sale advantages to Madonna, Whitney and Mariah, the digital sales era offers a big boost for the likes of Rihanna, Beyoncé and Taylor.

We can theorize why Taylor has been able to do this (namely highly relatable to her fans, innocuous/not controversial music able to appeal to wide demographics, and one of the best/most determined marketing rollouts of pop history specifically aimed at selling more and often more than one copy per fan), but I think a large factor has been her re-releases which boosted interest, sales and streams for a large part of her discography, and also created a cult-like appreciation of work while she continued to release new music.

I think the digital era is actually the weakest era for album consumption as piracy was the strongest then whilst the streaming era is as strong as the 90s was in terms of CSPC.

The Gen Z acts haven't hit it yet because they're too new, when they're 20 years in, I can see Billie having several and Dua should have at least 2.

Yes that is the indicator why Taylor's accomplishment is so unique. If in the last 10-15 years things were easier to accomplish than in past decades, we would see a lot more artists creating more units.

But almost no artist in modern times is above 100M CSPC, only her peer Drake is above 150M. And Taylor is well on her way to soon reach 300m units.

Also Taylor has a set standard of 20M. You saw it with Evermore, her 9th album is „only" a 10M and considered an underperformance by her standards. The last 3 albums she released are all on the pace to 20M units. And you can bet on if TS13 does not perform like a 20m unit album, she will get dragged here. Soon to be honored with her 6th IFPI global recording artist award. Competing this year for #7 if she releases something.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by Chartman

7 minutes ago, Kodak Energy said:

I think the digital era is actually the weakest era for album consumption as piracy was the strongest then whilst the streaming era is as strong as the 90s was in terms of CSPC.

The Gen Z acts haven't hit it yet because they're too new, when they're 20 years in, I can see Billie having several and Dua should have at least 2.

I think you misread what I wrote.

I didn't say the digital era was big for album consumption, I said it was a stronger period for digital song sales, which unless I'm wrong is something considered in "CSPC".

1 minute ago, Chartman said:

Also Taylor has a set standard of 20M. You saw it with Evermore, her 9th album is „only" a 10M and considered an underperformance by her standards. The last 3 albums she released are all on the pace to 20M units. And you can bet on if TS13 does not perform like a 20m unit album, she will get dragged here.

I think this points to the fact that her re-releases did indeed generate even more [commercial] interest in her music and career, as the first re-release came about 5 months after Evermore and as stated here, her next three albums after that and released between launches of re-recorded albums have basically doubled its success.

8 minutes ago, swissman said:

I think you misread what I wrote.

I didn't say the digital era was big for album consumption, I said it was a stronger period for digital song sales, which unless I'm wrong is something considered in "CSPC".

The fact that digital song sales were stronger is part of the reason why overall EAS were at their lowest point in the last 40 years. The user is disagreeing with you implying that there was an advantage of being active in this period.

Just now, byzantium said:

The fact that digital song sales were stronger is part of the reason why overall EAS were at their lowest point in the last 40 years. The user is disagreeing with you implying that there was an advantage of being active in this period.

If they were disagreeing with me how could they be saying there was an advantage of being active in this period, which is what I was saying?

My point was that artists like Rihanna, Beyoncé and Taylor benefited from debuting some of their most popular works at a time when digital song sales were at their peak. However, people are generally not listening to their library of purchased songs from 2012. If they want to listen to them, they'll likely be streaming them, which adds extra consumption that an artist like Billie Eilish would not have.

2 minutes ago, swissman said:

If they were disagreeing with me how could they be saying there was an advantage of being active in this period, which is what I was saying?

My point was that artists like Rihanna, Beyoncé and Taylor benefited from debuting some of their most popular works at a time when digital song sales were at their peak. However, people are generally not listening to their library of purchased songs from 2012. If they want to listen to them, they'll likely be streaming them, which adds extra consumption that an artist like Billie Eilish would not have.

They are arguing that there was a disadvantage from being active in the digital era because overall EAS were at their lowest point in 40 years.

"Chartmasters" lmaooooo

21 minutes ago, byzantium said:

They are arguing that there was a disadvantage from being active in the digital era because overall EAS were at their lowest point in 40 years.

And I was talking about the advantage of the digital era vs. the streaming era, NOT the digital era vs. the physical era.

54 minutes ago, swissman said:

And I was talking about the advantage of the digital era vs. the streaming era, NOT the digital era vs. the physical era.

What is the advantage of overall EAS in the digital era was lower than that in the streaming era?

The world biggest pop star