Would you say Taylor Swift is now bigger than Elvis?

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Elvis is in the top tier of all time with the Beatles and has sold like a zillion records with dozens of movies and popular biopics about him nearly 50 years after died, and they still sell Elvis Halloween costumes and have impersonators officiating weddings in Vegas, and a museum of his old house.

Taylor Swift is a level down in the Britney Spears category, and in 50 years will be more like Ace of Base or Chumbuwumba or some crap.
 
She is def one of the biggest.
They even talk about a Swiftconomy when she comes into town.

Personally I dont get it, and I only know 1 song by her.
But based on what I read, she seems insanely big.
 
No.

More importantly, she doesn't really matter. What is her impact on culture? As far as I can tell, it's nonexistent, except that it helps the Kansas City Chiefs sell more tickets, and generate more TV advertising revenue.

Elvis effectively created the culture of the corporate pop superstar. Generations of young girls lost their minds, and would save up allowances just to go watch him gyrate his hips. Taylor's a mere inheritor of the estate he built.

It's not like Madonna who enraged half the country by juxtaposing religious iconography to sexually charged imagery from the world of couture fashion. The world was so obsessed with her that the Cosmopolitan became one of the ten most popular cocktails in this country for decades just because women everywhere saw her in a magazine holding a pink drink in a Martini glass. That's obsession.

Taylor hasn't put entire genres of music to bed like Doo Wop or Hair Rock the way The Beatles or Nirvana did. Michael Jackson was so huge everyone alive tried doing the moonwalk, and nearly everyone mistakenly thought he invented it, because that was how much power he had for creating new pop iconography. If a performer today whipped out a single glove, and slowly put it on, everyone knows the reference. What would you do for Taylor? Nothing memorable, there.

What movement is she leading? She's not exactly the sort of artist who would inspire a Woodstock, and a widespread rebellion of the youth against consumerism and war. That's what artists like Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, and others did. More broadly, entangled with those, there was the countercultural defiance of "The Man" by less politically minded bands, or more purely, those focused on living a life pursuing the bliss of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. That was The Rolling Stones, The Doors, the Who, and others.

She's not N.W.A. or Public Enemy contributing to an entire race carving their voice into an emerging genre of music that was boldly content to define itself apart from White America, and what its majority considered acceptable.

I read an article just yesterday that observed Macklemore's recent song condemning the pushback against the pro-Palestinian protesters was special if for no other reason than it exists in an era of apolitical music. I can't say I'm eager to hear a bunch of whiny political sermons from first world brats, but that's a huge part of how the Civil Rights movement happened in the first place. It worked because it was sincere. I don't hear any sincerity today. Maybe that's why they all gave up having a message, and instead focused on their follower count. They don't care. If that's the game, sure, she's the queen of it.

Because there's nothing in her sound, her image, or her message that is lasting. Nothing special. Nothing that appears to be changing who we are, nothing that challenges who we've been. Nothing that changes how we see ourselves.

I suppose if I were to draw an analogy, one might say she is the Michael Bay of music popstars. The only difference is Bay is underappreciated for what he brings to the table, and people tend to hate on him. For whatever reason, Swift is overrated, and overappreciated.
 
Nah.
She's the perfect average for average music fans. Nothing controversial, nothing that creates a new culture, nothing that even challenges culture even a little bit, nothing inherently creative.

Taylor Swift is the name of the mediocrity our culture is currently swamping in.
 
Taylor Swift is the biggest musician right now. And mad respects for that. I hope she has a long and illustrious career. But Elvis changed the music industry and was so influential to so many great artists.

He was a pioneer in a sense.

It's hard to compare, both were in different eras and Elvis was like the first white person to start things off for rock n roll. He made it mainstream and universally cool.

The Beatles and Michael Jackson were both heavily influenced by him among others.
 
Hell no. Elvis, Michael Jackson, and The Beatles are at another level above other music artists. Maybe Bing Crosby and Sinatra back in their heyday were similar, but their international crossover wasn't as big due to limitations at the time. Even with a much easier international crossover ability in a lot of ways that can potentially exist now (thanks in large part due to technological advancements) no artist comes close to the cultural and international impact the big three had.
Swift is big now, but she's internationally big among fans of bubblegum pop (you know young girls to early 30's women-usually white or suburban, and definitely crossover with pop in Japan and South Korea so popular among a certain group there), there's no crossover appeal beyond fans of bubblegum pop though unlike the greats. I mean teenage girls liked Elvis, grown gruff men liked him, he's an idol for punk and metal dudes like Glenn Danzig and fans of gospel music. It's not the same and I'm guessing the same poster keeps mentioning this shit as Michael Jackson was brought up a couple of months back in relation to Swift's popularity.
 
No. I'm not opposed to running over a row of Taylor Swifts in Grand Theft Auto though.
 
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Hard to say. People still talk about Elvis to this day, ruffly 50 yeas after his death. He was quite a unique figure.

I don't know if Swift will be remembered as long after her popular years are behind her. She certainly is popular today that is for sure.
 
I don’t know. Who cares? Elvis was pretty fat when he became unalive though so she would have to pack on some pounds, although he’s probably not much more than bones with a quiff now so, yeah, she probably is bigger than him.
The fuck are you using "unalive" for, are your posts monetized?
 
I didn’t even realize Taylor Swift died of an intestinal blockage on the commode.
 
She is def one of the biggest.
They even talk about a Swiftconomy when she comes into town.

Personally I dont get it, and I only know 1 song by her.
But based on what I read, she seems insanely big.
Don't fucking lie, you own all her albums.
 
No.

More importantly, she doesn't really matter. What is her impact on culture? As far as I can tell, it's nonexistent, except that it helps the Kansas City Chiefs sell more tickets, and generate more TV advertising revenue.

Elvis effectively created the culture of the corporate pop superstar. Generations of young girls lost their minds, and would save up allowances just to go watch him gyrate his hips. Taylor's a mere inheritor of the estate he built.

It's not like Madonna who enraged half the country by juxtaposing religious iconography to sexually charged imagery from the world of couture fashion. The world was so obsessed with her that the Cosmopolitan became one of the ten most popular cocktails in this country for decades just because women everywhere saw her in a magazine holding a pink drink in a Martini glass. That's obsession.

Taylor hasn't put entire genres of music to bed like Doo Wop or Hair Rock the way The Beatles or Nirvana did. Michael Jackson was so huge everyone alive tried doing the moonwalk, and nearly everyone mistakenly thought he invented it, because that was how much power he had for creating new pop iconography. If a performer today whipped out a single glove, and slowly put it on, everyone knows the reference. What would you do for Taylor? Nothing memorable, there.

What movement is she leading? She's not exactly the sort of artist who would inspire a Woodstock, and a widespread rebellion of the youth against consumerism and war. That's what artists like Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, and others did. More broadly, entangled with those, there was the countercultural defiance of "The Man" and everything represented by that status quo by less politically minded bands, or more purely, those focused on living a life pursuing the bliss of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. That was The Rolling Stones, The Doors, the Who, and others.

She's not N.W.A. or Public Enemy contributing to an entire race carving their voice into an emerging genre of music that was boldly content to define itself apart from White America, and what its majority considered acceptable.

I read an article just yesterday that observed Macklemore's recent song protesting the pushback against the pro-Palestinian protesters was special if for no other reason than it exists in an era of apolitical music. I can't say I'm eager to hear a bunch of whiny political sermons from first world brats, but that's a huge part of how the Civil Rights movement happened in the first place. It worked because it was sincere. I don't hear any sincerity today. Maybe that's why they all gave up having a message, and instead focused on their follower count. They don't care. If that's the game, sure, she's the queen of it.

Because there's nothing in her sound, her image, or her message that is lasting. Nothing special. Nothing that appears to be changing who we are, nothing that challenges who we've been. Nothing that changes how we see ourselves.

I suppose if I were to draw an analogy, one might say she is the Michael Bay of music popstars. The only difference is Bay is underappreciated for what he brings to the table, and people tend to hate on him. For whatever reason, Swift is overrated, and overappreciated.

Please show us on the special doll where Ms Swift touched you... ;)
 
No.

More importantly, she doesn't really matter. What is her impact on culture? As far as I can tell, it's nonexistent, except that it helps the Kansas City Chiefs sell more tickets, and generate more TV advertising revenue.

Elvis effectively created the culture of the corporate pop superstar. Generations of young girls lost their minds, and would save up allowances just to go watch him gyrate his hips. Taylor's a mere inheritor of the estate he built.

It's not like Madonna who enraged half the country by juxtaposing religious iconography to sexually charged imagery from the world of couture fashion. The world was so obsessed with her that the Cosmopolitan became one of the ten most popular cocktails in this country for decades just because women everywhere saw her in a magazine holding a pink drink in a Martini glass. That's obsession.

Taylor hasn't put entire genres of music to bed like Doo Wop or Hair Rock the way The Beatles or Nirvana did. Michael Jackson was so huge everyone alive tried doing the moonwalk, and nearly everyone mistakenly thought he invented it, because that was how much power he had for creating new pop iconography. If a performer today whipped out a single glove, and slowly put it on, everyone knows the reference. What would you do for Taylor? Nothing memorable, there.

What movement is she leading? She's not exactly the sort of artist who would inspire a Woodstock, and a widespread rebellion of the youth against consumerism and war. That's what artists like Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, and others did. More broadly, entangled with those, there was the countercultural defiance of "The Man" and everything represented by that status quo by less politically minded bands, or more purely, those focused on living a life pursuing the bliss of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. That was The Rolling Stones, The Doors, the Who, and others.

She's not N.W.A. or Public Enemy contributing to an entire race carving their voice into an emerging genre of music that was boldly content to define itself apart from White America, and what its majority considered acceptable.

I read an article just yesterday that observed Macklemore's recent song protesting the pushback against the pro-Palestinian protesters was special if for no other reason than it exists in an era of apolitical music. I can't say I'm eager to hear a bunch of whiny political sermons from first world brats, but that's a huge part of how the Civil Rights movement happened in the first place. It worked because it was sincere. I don't hear any sincerity today. Maybe that's why they all gave up having a message, and instead focused on their follower count. They don't care. If that's the game, sure, she's the queen of it.

Because there's nothing in her sound, her image, or her message that is lasting. Nothing special. Nothing that appears to be changing who we are, nothing that challenges who we've been. Nothing that changes how we see ourselves.

I suppose if I were to draw an analogy, one might say she is the Michael Bay of music popstars. The only difference is Bay is underappreciated for what he brings to the table, and people tend to hate on him. For whatever reason, Swift is overrated, and overappreciated.

Nah.
She's the perfect average for average music fans. Nothing controversial, nothing that creates a new culture, nothing that even challenges culture even a little bit, nothing inherently creative.

Taylor Swift is the name of the mediocrity our culture is currently swamping in.
The novel and the cliffs
 
Please show us on the special doll where Ms Swift touched you... ;)
Ha! That ain't gonna fly.
And this right here demonstrates precisely why I mocked the follower count methodology.

According to this Rihanna and Katy Perry are more famous than Taylor Swift. C'mon.
LOL, is that why Taylor Swift's recent Eras tour smashed Elton John's record for a global concert tour?
The Billboard was unreliable for that decade. They only started tracking digital "demand expressions" around 2017 or 2018, IIRC. It was a pile of garbage through most of that decade. I had a thread long ago griping about that. I don't even know the extent to what their tracking entailed at first. It's far more complex to chart the top hits today than it used to be. You have YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Pandora, etc. You don't just have the radio to track, and all these smartphones/tablets/computers, but TVs are technically often operating on separate OS's, and that's where many stream their music via those services. For most of the 2000's they were pretty accurate, but the iPhone dropped in 2007, and by 2010, most were on smart devices in the USA. By 2013 that was pretty much everybody.

The Billboard was already struggling with MTV in the 90's. I noticed that in the one-hit wonder thread this past week. But I believe them for Eminem in the 2000's. I don't for one second believe that Drake was bigger than Taylor Swift in the 2010's. I look to the Kworb, these days.
https://kworb.net/itunes/
That's because right now the person on the throne of popular music isn't a man-- as I outlined in the other thread. It's Taylor Swift.

And yes, everybody knows who she is.
At this moment, based on "demand expressions", globally speaking, it's Taylor Swift.
Probably a familiar resource to most of you, I suspect I'm late to the bus stop, but a very cool website that focuses exclusively on statistics. It appears restricted to official videos/channels & charts, but that pits like against like.
https://kworb.net/

I thought of a thread that came up a while back where the Berry discussed who they thought might be the biggest female popstar right now. However, it's interesting even if you aren't interested by this question.

There's a lot of back and forth across the charts. Some, like Adele & Miley Cyrus, are great at selling albums (physical or otherwise), and do really well on platforms populated by the more affluent like Apple/iTunes, or on the radio. International popstars, particularly Spanish speakers, and hip-hop artists tend to do better on the visual-oriented (also free) YouTube. Spotify also favors hip-hop, but that appears to be a symptom of the fact it tends to generally skew younger by fan demographic for its favored stars. Olivia Rodrigo would be an example of someone who does better here, but not as well on the premium platforms or radio.

However, one thing is clear as day. There is a global pop queen. She is a juggernaut across the spectrum.
swifttaylor_AP_102122.jpg
 
It is fun to revisit old threads. This was less than three years ago-- just 2 1/2 years before the NFL lost started losing their minds because Taylor showed up. Look at how diverse the answers are from forumgoers. Frankly, I don't really understand what happened during this time. She didn't exactly release a Thriller or Meet the Beatles! Pretty much everything she released during this time were "re-recordings" where she circumvented IP law in her bitter, long-running public grudge against Scooter Libby. She took ownership. It was heralded by the press as a real "you go girl!" power move.

That's what has me suspicious; wondering if much of Taylor's star power-- while I wouldn't dispute it-- might be commercially engineered. She doesn't have friends in low places, she has them in high places. Maybe all the right high places. Like Disney. The type of executives who wear pants suits and have an agenda, with all the material accoutrements, to put Taylor on a pedestal.

Who's the biggest female popstar right now? (July-2021)

 
In sheer popularity, it's hard to say. That'll take years to properly assess. She's undeniably the biggest act going today, and breaking all sorts of records. She's easy to dismiss as not having any sort of cultural/industry changing impact, but her sheer popularity is un-fucking-believable at this stage. I don't see her fading out like Britney or the Backstreet Boys. Her and her Swifties are here to stay.

I don't think she'll ever be mentioned alongside MJ, Elvis, The Beatles, or shit, even Nirvana, in terms of being a cultural icon, but she'll be remembered for decades to come, nonetheless. One thing she doesn't have is crossover appeal. You don't have to be a fan of The Beatles to know their music. I doubt many who aren't Swift fans, could name one of her songs.
 
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