DevilsRollTheDice

I actually think the answer is no, and not because I think Taylor is some untouchable goddess who is the only artist capable of a peak like this in the 21st century in terms of ability. The world and music consumption has changed so much. Billboard even wrote about the Eras peak being the final bow of monoculture. It's not a phenomenon that just exists in music, either. Despite higher grosses, films sell far fewer tickets. TV show finales have far lower viewership. We're all siloed into our own interests and echo chambers and have every bit of entertainment ever created at our fingertips 24/7. I don't think people appreciate what a big deal that is. In the past, people were competing against other new things. Now, everyone is competing with new things AND every bit of excellent media that has ever existed. It's all equally accessible. Taylor caught the very last ship IMO. People thought those ships had already sailed! The Eras Tour was a completely perfect storm and defied what has become a longstanding and observable trend. I think there will be other massive peaks, but they'll have to be judged in some sort of relative way. I just don't think a similar peak is possible in the age of social media, streaming, surging legacy catalogues, and the current structure of the industry. It's shocking that Taylor's Eras Era became what it was. She was breaking records that have been locked since the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Records no one else has even been close to breaking. Taylor broke (and shattered) the domestic and worldwide single units in a year record that had been held by MJ for over 30 years. No other 21st century artist has been remotely close to that. In 2023 and 2024, she was nearly 2% of the entire US music industry. She was 1/78 of every audio stream! THAT is monoculture. Perhaps the final bow.

Again, you can look at multiple other country songs on the Hot 100 and TOTC right now. Their streams would literally be impossible if it wasn't for Amazon. The Amazon live chart isn't accurate. Where is Boston getting 6+ million streams when it's out of the top 10 on Spotify and Apple Music? The chart also hasn't changed at all since yesterday. That wouldn't be possible for a chart that was functioning correctly. And why are artist personal charts contradicting the main one? The only one trying too hard to make this a conspiracy theory is y'all. As I pointed out before, IKI,IKY also has the same ratio of Spotify streams/steams coming from elsewhere as Boston and a better ratio than other country hits.

If you look at the total streams of multiple country songs this week via TOTC, the Amazon Music chart is literally impossible. Again, check Boston. The charts don't make sense when compared against artist popular song charts, either. On Taylor's page, IKI,IKY is listed as her most popular song and Opalite is charting above Ophelia. On the main chart, IKI,IKY is glitched out and Ophelia is above Opalite. That page is obviously inaccurate and glitched.

I think that is a totally fair thing to say and much more reasonable than the literal conspiracy theories going on in here. It's more a critique of Amazon than anything else. With that said, it also means the song is getting a lot of exposure to a lot of people. I am from a state that listens to a lot of country music and also hear it out and about all the time. We were at the beach two weekends ago and it was everywhere.

I truly don't know what is so difficult to understand. Amazon is still a quarter of US marketshare. Streams are likely highly concentrated around top songs given the nature of the platform. Country music is disproportionately popular. It's not rocket science. The proprietary chart being **** and nonfunctional is meaningless aside from answering questions asked in this thread. Apple Music doesn't publish streaming data either. Just do the math for Boston, the 2nd biggest song on US streaming currently. It did 16.1 million streams this week. 5 million from Spotify. That leaves 11.1 million streams on the table from Apple and Amazon. It is also out of the top 10 on Spotify and Apple Music. If you take Boston's ratio of 5 million to 16.1 million and apply it to IKI,IKY, you get 3 million to 9.7 million streams. IKI,IKY is projected to do 10 million this week. So the math checks out nearly precisely. Tin hats foiled again! EDIT: Just thought I'd check another example of a country song and Luke Bryan's Be By You is projected to be 17 on this week's Hot 100 with a higher ratio of streams coming outside Spotify and Apple. It's currently 170 on US Spotify and 61 on USA Apple Music, but projected to do 7.1 million streams. EDIT 2: Morgan Wallen is projected to be 26 on the Hot 100 with 6.3 million streams and is outside the top 200 on Spotify USA. You might have problems with how Amazon Music works, but IKI,IKY's numbers are not suspicious in the slightest.

ASIB is probably the best side quest by any 21st century pop girl.

There was a lot of stupidity and misinformation that needed to be addressed.

This . The streams are official numbers from Luminate. If Taylor had the power to fake streams on Luminate, Elizabeth Taylor would've been a bigger hit. If Disney had the power to fake streams on Luminate, Lift Me Up would've been a bigger hit. The streams are real. It's a delusional tinfoil hat conspiracy theory to suggest otherwise. This is just like...such an obvious situation to anyone who isn't an OTH trying to circlejerk in this thread. Disney IS pushing the song on radio, no one is going to deny that. ~1/2 the streams are coming from Apple/Spotify, ~1/2 are coming from Amazon. Amazon strongly favors country music. It's also likely that Amazon's top streams are clustered around far fewer songs as most Amazon Music users are likely playing artists/playlists instead of searching specific songs. Taylor is currently number 1 on the country playlist. The Amazon Music charts are broken. They are not accurate and display wildly different things day-to-day or display the same thing for weeks at a time. On Taylor's artist page, I Knew It, I Knew You is listed as her top performing song. You can see that here: The Fate of Ophelia is currently charting at 15 on the overall top songs page. As IKI,IKY is higher than it on her personal top performing songs chart, it must be out-streaming Ophelia. IKI,IKY currently isn't showing up anywhere on the overall chart because the chart is a mess and glitches like crazy. There's also a mismatch in Ophelia and Opalite's performance between the two charts. You can make the coherant criticism that Amazon Music is often much more passive listening that other platforms, and that's true. People are saying things like, "Play some Taylor Swift" or "play some country music." It's also highly likely that Amazon Music's streams are much more highly concentrated around top songs than other streaming platforms for that exact same reason. Amazon is nearly a quarter of US streaming marketshare. With IKI,IKY obviously performing quite well there + the overwhelming likelihood of streams being much more concentrated around a smaller number of songs, it's completely believable that it makes up the gap in streams. Boston, the number 2 song on the USA currently, is getting ~5 million weekly streams from Spotify and 16.1 million streams overall. It's allegedly 53 on Amazon's chart which is literally impossible. Even if the song was getting a full 5 million from Apple Music, which is unlikely given the marketshare difference AND the fact that Apple Music operates in a similar way to Spotify in terms of how people access the music, that leaves 6.1 million streams unaccounted for. The Amazon overall songs chart is just broken and doesn't update correctly. Amazon doesn't publish data like Spotify and Apple, but for the years where they have released the most popular artists of the year, it has mostly been Taylor. This song is a perfect storm for that service. She is likely the most popular artist on the platform releasing a country song which is BY FAR the most popular genre on the platform. It doesn't take a genius to understand why it's successful or why they'd playlist it heavily. Anyway, the history books will remember this as a multi-week number 1 soundtrack single that will likely finish in the year-end top 30. No amount of screaming and crying about Spotify, Apple, and Amazon will change that! Sorry I needed to write a multi-paragraph essay, some people need things very explicitly spelled out once their tinfoil hats have cut off circulation to the brain. No one thinks this is going to be one of Taylor's biggest or most remembered hits of the decade, but it's done quite well for a soundtrack single and the numbers are clearly legitimate.

Maybe Shake It Off setting off the earthquake detectors in Seattle

Will Ferrell's son

We all know TS20 is coming but this specific logo seems a little…strange? Not sure this is actually her.

Me entering this thread:

You say this as though Katy's numbers are being bolstered by some sort of active/current success. Katy isn't touring either and Gaga's tour concluded much more recently. I don't think Watch It Burn is inflating Katy's streams. We're essentially comparing their back catalogues + A Star Is Born/a smattering of Gaga singles since 2013. Pinning it on viral singles is whatever, their streams would still be tight without TOTGA. Both have songs go viral all the time, too. No one had a problem attributing Bloody Mary to Gaga's overall success vibes when it was going viral. As for Beyonce, she debuted in 2003 or the 90s depending on how you measure. Not exactly comparable. Gaga and Katy are as directly comparable as two artists can be. But if you want to bring Bey into the boatmates/success discussion, the truth is Katy is closer to Gaga than Monsters want her to he (especially considering her career completely died over a decade ago) and Gaga is closer to Bey than the Hive would like her to he.

Gaga is and always will be the bigger celebrity with the better career. BUT people need to be honest about how impressive Katy's recurrents for three eras and a couple of notable droplets are. She's like a lessor Rihanna with similar immortal hits. I also think Monsters do too much on her because it IS shocking and a bit embarrassing (for stan purposes at least) that she's this close to Gaga despite not having a real career in over a decade.

Wait, did Teenage Dream really have 2 billion streams from remixes? Wasn't the only remotely successful one ET? And was that even at 500 million streams? We TCC streams separate or something?