Pop Art

Says the person talking about streams like they're getting songwriting residuals from them (which some artists don't even see *giggles hysterically*)

August 2026 Update Spotify YouTube

Is that so? Shall we revisit your list in the OP then but with career concert grosses? Surely the order wouldn't change if Rihanna is such a hot live act as you're insinuating, right? Taylor Swift - $3.13B Beyoncé - $1.78B Lady Gaga - $1.17B Shakira - $529.7M Katy Perry - $529.1M Rihanna - $350M Oh dear...it seems it did change. I wonder why?

Follow up question: why would people rather listen to Rihanna's catalogue, than watch her perform?

Abracadabra surpassed 500M plays on YouTube Music today, becoming Gaga's 17th song to surpass the mark on the platform. Die With A Smile: 3.5B Bad Romance: 3B Poker Face: 2.8B Shallow: 2.7B Always Remember Us This Way: 1.3B Judas: 1.1B Telephone: 1B Alejandro: 1B Just Dance: 1B I'll Never Love Again: 933M Paparazzi: 742M Applause: 739M Rain On Me: 667M Million Reasons: 599M Bloody Mary: 580M Born This Way: 579M Abracadabra: 500M

I can't speak for anyone but myself, and no I most certainly did not ever care more about her acting than her music. Feel free to check my post history to verify if you'd like. Also, have you considered that perhaps the reason her acting career isn't discussed a lot at the moment is because...there's nothing to discuss? Her last lead role was almost 2 years ago and she has yet to sign on for the next one — what exactly do you expect us to talk about? Like let's take the hater goggles off and put on our thinking caps from time to time sis.

More and more I'm starting to seriously think the Kats have lost their minds. One of the Boys counting as a major smash era for Katy but not Born This Way for Gaga?

Weren't y'all dragging her acting as a supposed desperate cling to relevance when her success in music cooled down a bit? Now all of a sudden it's concerning she's not acting as much? Let's get control of the narrative shall we?

I knew as soon as I read "AI" on the website for this that ATRL would be up in arms. Look, I cannot stand generative AI in most instances (I can't tell you how embarrassing it is when I hear someone close to me say "let me ask chat" ) and we should absolutely call out Gaga's and every other popstar's usage of generative AI when it does happen, but as said many times in this thread, this is more than likely not that. There are different types of AI and they are not all the generative type that deservedly receive lashings. I'm still a little skeptical about this, but if they can do what they're claiming, it really could be revolutionary. I've been hoping there could be a way one day that animal testing could be phased out — never did I think Gaga might be involved in making that a reality. Not to mention all the possible advancements in healthcare and beauty around skin, from the vain (anti-aging solutions) to life saving (cancer treatments). This really could be huge in several industries if it can deliver on their claims.

Haus Labs 2.0? The page she linked kinda just sounds like buzzword jargon to me. Admittedly I did only skim it, and if it does what I think it's claiming to do, it certainly sounds like it could be a pretty big deal.

It's the daily streams they had on day one, one year later, and two years later. As It Was had 16.1M streams on Day 1, BOAF 8M.

To add to this, I'm reminded of the TOTC article from a year ago about DWAS vs BL and how they pointed out that though DWAS had a stronger first year, BL had a surprisingly strong second year because of a few factors (SBHT, continued smash era, etc.) that it was unclear at the time if DWAS would have. A year later, it looks like DWAS might in fact have a stronger second year even without those factors. Kinda wish they would update their article to reflect the additional data.

Happy 2 Years of Smash With A Smile. Here is how it compares with the songs above it on the Spotify all time chart in terms of positions and streams on release day in years 1-3. I included all the songs that were released since late 2016 since that's when Spotify launched its charts. It really is one of the most stable songs of all time. Song Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Die With A Smile #10 #8 #18 Blinding Lights #8 #15 #42 Blinding Lights (Without Xmas Songs) #8 #9 #35 Shape Of You #1 #11 #67 As It Was #1 #8 #55 Sunflower #6 #20 #77 Perfect #10 #26 #100 Stay #4 #19 #114 Believer #165 #77 #94 Birds Of A Feather #8 #3 #43 Song Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Die With A Smile 4,585,607 3,541,369 2,376,979 Blinding Lights 3,479,390 2,982,249 1,642,936 Shape Of You 6,151,345 2,214,010 959,172 As It Was 16,103,849 4,078,164 1,932,488 Sunflower 3,413,611 1,999,044 1,068,013 Perfect 3,384,117 1,845,846 829,601 Stay 6,399,418 2,468,684 1,352,625 Believer 467,057 1,037,276 991,088 Birds Of A Feather 7,969,100 4,911,166 2,273,491

Not "Xtina and Beyoncé are both super close" when at their current rate it will take Halo ~3.5 years and MLJ over 1.75 years to get there.

One of the most legendary songs of all time, absolutely deserved.

I've been getting a playlist ready of songs I want to play during the dance part of my wedding next year, and one thing I really wanted was Telephone ft. Beyoncé and Britney since we have Britney's leaked vocals and it would be a fun and easy way to incorporate one of my favorite pop girls within the limited time allotted in that segment. I was gonna make it myself since most of the versions on YouTube aren't quite what I wanted, but finding her stems proved impossible and then I happened upon this one, and it's pretty damn close to what I envisioned! Just wanted to share here in case anyone else ever wanted a good quality version featuring Britney as well. Separately, I found this one which is SUCH a bop, though much more in the vein of the demo (which isn't bad, just not what I would want to play). I always liked Telephone, but it's always been below my absolute faves from Gaga, and I low key had forgotten how good it is until this process. I've been (re)obsessed with it for days.

What an incredibly ill-informed thing to say. Can't say I'm surprised coming from a MAGA fan though. The peaks of each of their Hot 100 solo Top 10 songs: Song US Global Global Excl. US DtMF #1 #1 #1 BAILE INoLVIDABLE #2 #2 #2 Moscow Mule #4 #2 #2 Monaco #5 #1 #1 NUEVAYoL #5 #3 #2 Tití Me Preguntó #5 #4 #4 Después de la Playa #6 #7 #9 Where She Goes #8 #1 #3 Yonaguni #10 #3 #4 Choosin' Texas #1 #2 #43 Be Her #2 #25 OUT One of these is clearly different than the other.

If anything, the Global Excl. US chart shows just how irrelevant the other "major" markets outside of the US are when you compare them with the collective rest of the world. Just because it doesn't fit your preconceived notion of what it should be based on what we thought before we had the data we have now does not mean it's inaccurate. A phenomenon in the same vein can be seen when looking at the Spotify charts for different countries, so it's not like it's only happening with this chart: Streams of #1 Song on Different Countries Charts Indonesia: 2M India: 1.4M US: 1.4M Brazil: 1.2M Mexico: 1.1M Phillipines: 618K UK: 355K Canada: 221K Australia: 190K Under your logic, it's more important to be #1 in the three anglosphere countries on the bottom even when those songs are getting but a fraction of the streams generated by the other "lesser" countries. Times have changed, and while there are still some inherent benefits to being successful in wealthier countries (namely touring), you can see there is an argument that it is better to have your music do well in less wealthy countries where there is a larger base of people to stream it. The reality is this is probably how it always was, but it was just never reflected properly — the global consumer base is now being more well represented than ever with the newer charts we have today, and that is a good thing.

Along with a few others, she's always been more of a B-tier pop girl — think of the term "ex-act" and why it exists, and why it took so long for even Ariana to be widely considered a MPG. Her biggest successes came at the perfect crossroads of her peak exposure as a pop girl (Revival), her peak artistic phase (the droplet era), and the transition between consumption eras (digital to streaming) that allowed a lot of what would appear to be "lesser" artists under normal circumstances to see a good amount of success. Since all three of those are behind us, it's not really surprising she's settled back into that B-tier pop girl bracket she was in (and low key never fully left) before her peak.

On this week's charts: US: #1 Global: #4 Global Excl. US: #53 The only reason she appears "global" is she's smashing so hard in the US it's more than making up for how poorly she's doing in basically every non-anglosphere country. But that's par for the course for country music mostly.

He likes to pretend try to be neutral and I do think he has a slight bias in favor of Gaga, but it's obvious his true loyalty is to Taylor (and Carly) and he'll throw anyone under the bus to take the heat off of her, including Gaga (as we see now). It's been obvious for years he's not a true fan and it's so annoying when he feigns shock that we would dare call him out for it. 🙄

God that was a hard read. I'm so sad for her, she deserved and deserves so much better. As much as I wish her all the healing in the world, I worry she's not ever going to fully recover, which is understandable given what happened but very sad nonetheless. Her reflection on her life before the conservatorship was a knife to the heart.

When that one Katy Kat circa 2018 said they wouldn't be that upset if she died because it was her best chance of going #1 on iTunes again.

July 2026 Update Spotify YouTube