Storm653

The real answer is that the Country fandom adjusted to streaming over the years. That's it. They were already a huge market in terms of CD buying and concert attendance but, now, they've gotten used to streaming their faves as well. Morgan Wallen was already smashing during the Biden era so Trump plays no role. Younger Country fans are just using Spotify and Apple like everyone else.

She's going to link up with The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande, Drake, Morgan Wallen, Justin Bieber, SZA, Bad Bunny, Blackpink, Lil Baby, Playboi Carti, and Ella Langley for the singles for her upcoming country pop-trap album "Mrs. Trudeau."

Not the biggest fan of the song but it's an undeniable hit. Drake will always make the catchiest music in hip hop(as far as male rappers). That's always been for forte.

It was a rather dry year for hits so this doesn't surprise me.

Rihanna is versatile the same way Drake is versatile. I'll leave it at that.

I highly doubt that lol. But this can be said about just about any celebrity tbh. Even Madonna probably has many people irl who view her as an "old hag" or "washed up" even with Confessions 2 out. That doesn't mean she doesn't have many supporters and fans though. Almost every famous celebrity has their share of haters or people indifferent to them. It comes with the territory. But Taylor almost objectively has the biggest fanbase in pop right now. We are past the age of artists have Beatles and pre-Dangerous era MJ level universal love regardless of the artist. Even Beyonce has her share of people who think it's "gay" to listen to her music(straight guys) and people who associate her with the occult or witchcraft(MAGA and Christian types).

Offline, Taylor is very much a well-liked artist and person. At most, people just get tired of the media exposure but that's it. Everything you just said applies to Nicki Minaj and Kanye West more than Taylor lol.

This is false. Many actual witnesses have claimed that the Carters had a strictly business/socialite relationship with Diddy just like every other celebrity.

The tricky thing with Taylor is that her "damaged reputation" and "infamy" is very much a chronically online phenomenon just like with the numerous conspiracies about Beyonce. Overall, all Taylor needs to do is put out a much better album than TLOASG and stay out of the limelight and a lot of the online negativity will dry out very fast. Stan Twitter and OTHs will continue to hate but they'll sound more delusional constantly trashing her all the time. In many ways, pop stars with "polished" images and good PR like Taylor and Beyonce are ESPECIALLY controversial in pop/stan spaces online to the degree where people have to LIE on them to manufacture controversies. Taylor has NEVER publicly supported Trump and Travis is a Liberal yet her haters will label them MAGA and Far Right. Taylor has never been exposed as an actual racist and has stood up for POC many times yet she's casually labeled a vile racist. And she gets far more hate and criticism than Rihanna for being a billionaire capitalist. There's no winning with Stan Twitter types when it comes to Taylor but they don't matter in the grand scheme of things. At the end of the day, Taylor has never flopped to the extent of Katy, Xtina, Lizzo, etc. and her controversies aren't close to being as bad as Nicki's, Chris Brown's, Justin's, Drake's, Kanye's, MIA's, Courtney Love's, Azalea Banks's etc. so there really isn't a true "PR Crisis" with Taylor outside of overexposure tbh.

Honestly, with all the extreme disrespect Madonna was getting from the Moonwalkers especially after the biopic, I can't help but have a smile on my face. Granted, I NEVER disliked Madame X like so many people did. I think people underrated it and wrote it off as a "trendy" album because of the features even though it was still Madonna in her creative zone. But I'm glad Confessions 2 is getting the props it's getting. Now, the Moonwalkers who dragged Madonna should start being honest about their messiah's pre-OTW solo albums and post 80's solo albums before coming for the Queen.

Katy and Xtina are interesting because they had a normal pop cycle of staying hot for 3-4 albums before falling off. However, their inability to hit a new stride or bounce back like many of their peers given their huge peaks is what makes their downfalls feel so tragic. They've tried soooo many times to have a comeback but nothing has worked. Xtina even tried to cling to newer Latin artists for relevance and Katy did a song with Chief Keef and that didn't work. At least Britney bowed out gracefully after Glory flopped and Lorde continued making great music for more niche music fans post Melodrama. Xtina and Katy haven't done either well.

Quiet as kept, Lizzo herself ended up admitting this by tweeting how she thrived off a radio airplay and got screwed over by streaming and algorithms. Mind you, Lizzo blew up in the streaming era and was a major celebrity when she was dominant.

Madonna. Let's not get caught up in recency bias or only using "streams" as a metric. If you take away her tons of features for other major artists like Drake, Eminem, Kanye, Jay, Calvin Harris, DJ Khaled, etc. then Madonna very clearly has the bigger solo hit catalog than Rihanna. Even rappers have made songs based on Madonna songs like Holiday Rap and that Jay naming a song "Justify My Thug." And Vogue is one of the most iconic pop songs ever and it's a soundtrack song. Rihanna or Mariah are still 2nd in command though. Don't get it twisted.

Katy actually has a pretty normal pop star career life cycle. It's not the norm for artists like Madonna, Beyonce, Taylor, Gaga, Adele, Lana, Rihanna, Janet, etc. to have 15-20+ year runs. Their careers are anomalies in the pop world. Look at Doja Cat and Dua Lipa for example. They both had 2 massive pop albums that dominated the landscape but Radical Optimism and Scarlet were falls from grace compared to the previous 2 albums. And people are still stunned with their inability to recapture the FN and Planet Her dominance today. Katy did very well for 8 years(2008-2015) but she didn't really stick out enough to have the same cult or diehard followings as certain other pop stars which lead her to having a normal pop star run where you're hot for 1-4 albums and then, as Porky Pig says, "That's all folks!"

I know there's a big "R&B vs Pop" debate but I feel Usher in 2004 should be here too.