October 15, 2025 • 43 mins
So everyone knows Taylor Swift is one of the most popular musicians of all time, but how does she stack up to giants of the past like Michael Jackson and The Beatles? No matter how many reports of new chart records, we can’t shake the feeling that someone like MJ just had a larger cultural impact worldwide. This week, we crunch the numbers to see the true size of the Swiftdom we live in.
Our guest this week is Chris Dalla Riva, author of Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves.
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Have a question you want us to answer? Email us at mannynoahdevan@gmail.com or leave a voicemail at (860) 325-0286
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, I'm manny I noh, and welcome to No such Thing,
the show where we set all our dumb arguments and
yours by actually doing the research. This week we find
out how popular Boring Barbie actually is.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
There's no no such thing, no such thing such, thank such,
thank touch, thank.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
So.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We're talking about Taylor Swift mainly. How did she capture
our collective attention so completely her new album It's sold
two point seven million copies in one day.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
This is something we've talked about a while because you
see big albums like this come out not only from her,
about anyone else, and it'll be like, this song just
broke this amazing record.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
This is the most popular song ever of all time.
And it never really makes sense.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
It's always like something like, yeah, a lot of people
listen to the Weekend Blinding Lights to me is not
the most popular song.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
Ever, right, even though it is.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Even though people listen to Yeah, people listen to him.
I don't think it's like, no one listens to that guy.
And we're curious, in the grand scheme of things, how
popular is a Taylor Swift compared to someone from the past,
like the Beatles or Michael Jackson. But before we get
into that, Okay, what everyone wants to know is what
do we think about Taylor Swift US three mid thirties
(01:23):
guys think so, you know, we'll get to that right
in the interest, so people don't even need to listen
to the rest of this.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
So what are your experiences with her?
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Well, let me start by saying, I genuinely have not
listened to much of her music, like I do. Remember
when I was in high school. You know, I'm on
the bleachers. What's as a song you Belong with Me?
You Belong with Me? And I thought that was really
catchy at the time. Fast forward, however, many years, like
I really haven't listened to much of it. I did
listen to this one, and my initial reaction was that,
(01:52):
you know, a lot of it sounded really well produced.
It's kind of pleasant to listen to in that way.
I am not unique in my reaction to like the lyrics.
I'll say, like, some of those were kind of like,
kind of mind bogglingly bad, but not so much worse
than like your average top forty pop fair.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
I'm not as swifty by any stretching.
Speaker 7 (02:15):
Imagine it's okay if you are, but I think I'm
out right now. Amongst the three of us, I'm definitely
the most in tune with.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
You've at least heard. Yeah, you keep up on mainstream
popular music.
Speaker 7 (02:27):
Yeah yeah, I usually give all the new albums at
least one listen through. You know, I dated a Swifty
for a while, so like it was at a certain
point my Apple Music would try to wreck you know,
you know, auto play tailor car Yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
I had to tell it to stop doing that.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
Swifty as in by Osmosis.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (02:45):
But my thoughts on this album, Okay, when we talk
about Taylor Swift, I'm a reputation fan.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Okay, I listened to that one. That was I think
the last album I listened to before this one.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
My favorite Endgame the Future in Edge, Big d Bars.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
The linkup was crazy incredible, So you know, I hope
we get back to their.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
This album compared to reputation.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
Not no, no, no no, this doesn't hold up to
reputation for me. Okay, Yeah, people are talking a lot
about the lyrics. I don't have much room to talk.
Some of my favorite artists have the most cringey lyrics.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
I think she gets a little bit picked on I
think because of the identity she's built around being a
song That's what I.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Was going to say.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I think the fandom hurts her in this case because
they they try to make sure she's built up to
be so highly esteemed as a songwriter and a lyricist
and all this, so that way when anything is not great,
like we wouldn't be this critical of Sabrina Carpenter or someone, yeah,
just because we don't think of her that way, because
people don't put her on that pedestal.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Yeah, I'm not upset at me, espresso, Do I know
what the fuck that means? That's fun, I mean whatever,
But yes.
Speaker 7 (04:00):
I do feel like too, Taylor's doing this thing where
she's like talking about the Internet on this album, right,
and I feel like once you get a certain level
of a rich you're just like out of touch with
the Internet in a way. But I do feel like
there is a sort of like she's singing about stuff
that feels like it's like.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Not ten years old, close to it, you know.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Yeah, well like yeah girl Battle Boston.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I listened to the album and then I was surprised
by the reaction being so negative.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
It seems just because it to my ears.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And this is the thing where it's like, if you're
really in this world, you're going to notice the differences
versus like I pop into some pop albums, not tailors
fifth albums. So it's like, to me, this doesn't sound
so dramatically different. But if I was like ahead, yeah,
I'd be able to be like, Okay, this is a
clear you know, clearly worse than before or clearly different
in this way. To me, it's not so dramatically different
(04:52):
than even like the really old stuff, yeah, sonically or lyrically. Yeah,
So you're saying that the songwriting is is bad, but Whires,
everyone's surprised. It's always kind of like this. I'm not
even saying it's bad even, but it sounds not so
dramatically different.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Yeah, it sounds about because I.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Listened to the album a few times now and it
kind of grew on me certain parts, certain songs. I
was like, Okay, there's actually at least a really good
piece here.
Speaker 6 (05:15):
Yeah. A lot of people were posting albums that other
female artists did at age thirty five versus a show girl. Yeah,
and it was like Beyonce Lemonade and the Joni Mitchell
album I can't remember. Yeah, there's like so many examples
of like kind of more mature, iconic mature music.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah. Yeah, that was listening to Life of a show Girl.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
There was parts where it was like, this sounds like
music for babies, And I mean that kind of respectfully.
Speaker 5 (05:45):
You got a private Tom, It's fun.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I actually think I like the album more than you guys,
But some of some music, when I'm listening to the lyrics,
I'm like, this just sounds like something for a little
kid to dance singing to.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
The sounds of it are just like, so.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Let's pop please in general, And to.
Speaker 6 (06:06):
Be fair, it's like probably kind of the goal, like, yeah,
it's a lot of.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
A bad thing. Yes, it's not very Uh there's not
much of an edge to it. Yeah, no, you know,
by design.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
Yeah. I think I see the harsh reaction in two
different ways. One is there's got to be some kind
of a fatigue. I think that's kind of what you
were talking about, where like the album doesn't really sound
that much different than the previous ones, and yet there's
a backlash.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
There's probably a little fatigue there.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
She kind of has to drink problem where she Na
always has to be making music always needs to be
in spotlight. I was like, it'd be interesting if she
just like dropped two songs, yeah, and not an album,
But she doesn't really do that.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So let's move on to kind of our question that
we're tackling. Do you guys think she is bigger than
Michael Jackson?
Speaker 6 (06:53):
What I would say is that Taylor Swift might be
more famous in that more people know who she is today,
but Michael Jackson. But Michael Jackson is a bigger.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Completed No, No, I think it's flipped.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I think I think she might well have technically sold
more records, yes, but I think Michael Jackson is way
more famous, especially if we're not talking about just America
like worldwide.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
You know what I mean, I forgot about you know
who Michael Jackson is. You know it's and like there's
symbols of him that you could show, like.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Kids are wearing Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Taylor Swift by face, a lot of people would recognize her,
but there's not like there's not like the red jacket,
like yeah, there's nothing like that, you.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Know, of what do you what do you think though?
Who do you think is more? You think Taylor Swift
is well.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
I would only say that in the sense that there
might be a chance that more people know who she is,
like today today, Michael Jackson's been dead for fifteen years
at least, and so I don't even I'm not saying
that more people know who she is. I'm just saying
I could see a world where now in terms of
like bigger, more, I don't.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Know the hedge. It's like impossible to guess.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
So you don't, you don't, you don't feel strongly. I
mean you think it could be a toss up.
Speaker 6 (08:00):
If it depends on age, I guess if you're thirty,
in up Michael Jackson.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
But the question is just more general, like in the world,
who's right now?
Speaker 6 (08:08):
If you serve the internationally, Michael Jackson is a bigger,
more known person.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And who do you think has sold more albums? However
you want to quantify that, like who sold more music?
Speaker 6 (08:21):
It's not fair, but Taylor Swift. It's not fair to
Michael Jackson had to get on a you have to
get on a bus to go buy his ship like today.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
But that's what you think.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
I think it's crazy to even.
Speaker 7 (08:39):
Suggest that Taylor Swift is bigger than Michael Jackson. Yeah,
I think Michael Jackson is, you know, besides Jesus, you know,
like the most popular person of all time, you know,
and it's beyond the music, right, It's like it's.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
A thing Jesus phenomenon. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
Like everyone knows who Michael Jackson is in in terms
of reach, right, Michael Jackson he was, you know, famous
when he was like five. He was in the industry
for a while. People who were very young knew who
Michael jacksons. We are very old know who Michael Jackson is.
People can name Michael Jackson songs. Taylor Swift feels a
(09:20):
bit like, sure, maybe there's name recognition, but I think
people know less about Taylor Swift outside of like she's
dating Travis Kelsey, Like people don't My mom isn't. No,
she couldn't name a Taylor Swift song. She couldn't sing
a Taylor Swift song. A lot of people who know
Taylor Swift is could not name anything about her music.
If you know who Michael Jackson is, you could probably
(09:41):
name one Michael Jackson song.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
To be fair to Taylor Swift, I don't think any
artists ever will reach that's level.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Fault of stardom.
Speaker 7 (09:49):
I think we're past that, We've passed the sort of
like everyone is listening to the same thing. Yeah, everything
is so much more fragmented nowadays that the closest we
have to like everybody's watching or listening to this thing,
Like what super Bowl halftime show?
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Yeah, yep, it's like the one moment we have a yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
And even that feels like decreasing.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
But yeah, where I come in on the kind of
impact sort of thing, It's like Michael Jackson is popular
across races, across ages, like you were saying, like across
the world, like like my parents listen to Michael Jackson,
your parents Like it's.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
Versus like Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It's like, you know, I have a very simple picture
of who in my mind is the Tailor Shift listener.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Obviously it's broader than that. Clearly based on the numbers,
it has to be. Yeah, But like a lot of
people would not.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Be able to name the Tailor Shift songs in the
way that many people of all types would be able
to name Michael Jackson songs and talk about him, like
you were saying, I am.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
Curious about like young people today, we can probably no
longer call ourselves young people, but people who are like
kids to teens, what their relationship to Michael Jackson?
Speaker 7 (10:57):
Yeah, my brother, well maybe because you know, up, my
brother knows who Michael Jackson is though.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Yeah, and like you seventeen seventeen.
Speaker 7 (11:05):
Yeah, like I'm seeing videos of like, you know, three
year old canting to Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, because you could picture if you know, we
had kids, Yes, they might hear Michael Jackson.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
Ye, because of us, and then they know who. That's
all it takes.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
Take Michael Jackson out of the equation, just like thriller. Right,
It's like every Halloween thriller is going to be played everywhere.
And even if you don't know that's a Michael Jackson thing,
it's like, well you know that song, you know that video.
Someone brought this up to me too when I was
talking to him about this conversation about like, do you
think a woman could ever be as popular as any
famous man in terms of musicians, And I was like,
(11:41):
actually no, because I think because women listen to female musicians,
and I think a lot of men will not listen. Yeah, women,
by a lot of well, straight men will not listening
to women musicians or you know, just because it's like
that's a girl thing.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, I think that's true because even like the most
praised like Beyonce album or whatever, Like whoever is the
most acceptable female star for men to listen to? I
don't think it would be Beyonce, but maybe yeah, you
just don't see.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
It reaching that height. Yeah at all.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So we're gonna take a break and when we come back,
we'll talk to someone who wrote a book crunching the
numbers when it comes to music data, and so hopefully
you can answer some of these questions. But first let's
hear from a few devoted Swifties about what the singer
means to them.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So, I think Taylor Swift is so important to me
and so special to me because of the way she's
able to paint all the emotions of the world into song.
You can feel the life just flowing through every single note, rhythm, melody.
It's infectious.
Speaker 8 (12:58):
I always said, you wrote the soundtrack to my life,
just because I fell in love for music in like
two thousand and six and it was like sixth grade.
I think around them, and even if I haven't been
through the things she's singing about, like she was singing
about breakups, and I had never had a relationship that
I'm like, oh my god, Like she gets my feelings
for me.
Speaker 9 (13:16):
What makes Taylor so special is her unhindered feminine voice,
the fact that she as a woman, can express her
feelings as a woman without having to be confined to.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
As much patriarchy.
Speaker 9 (13:31):
She still is complied to patriarchy, but the shackles of
patriarchy are lighter than they have ever been.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I kind of say she's created a better church, one
where there tends to be a higher bar in terms
of we don't want misogynists here, we don't want homophobic
people here. We love people who want to express themselves,
whether that's painting their nails or dressing up to go
to concerts.
Speaker 8 (13:56):
I mean, I think people will also sometimes reduce her
relatability to just like, oh, she's a basic white girl,
so all the basic white girls see them at her.
And I'm like, that's like a crazyly misogynistic things to
say that, like, oh, all these women are just so basic,
and that's like that's who supports her, and that's why
she's so famous. It's like, no, she has a lots
of reasons for it. But she also has like massive
fan bases in Asia South America, like so many countries
(14:18):
and so like, she has managed to find a way
to just kind of like tap into being relatable to everyone.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
So we are back.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
We're trying to figure out how Taylor Swift's success compares
to past superstars and guess some answers were joined by
Chris Stalareva. Chris Mind introducing herself.
Speaker 10 (14:45):
Yeah, sure, my name is Chris Stallareva. I feel like
I should say that again. I work in the music business.
I work for a music streaming company called audio Mac,
which is more like the SoundCloud universe. People could upload directly,
and we're very popular in Africa and the Caribbean and
I do the data analytics work there. But outside of
my job, I do a lot of writing about music
(15:05):
and data. I have a relatively popular newsletter and I
have a book coming out called Uncharted Territory, which is
a data driven history of popular music. So I'm very
much in the music data sphere.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
So I guess let's kind of get straight into it.
How popular is Tailor Swift?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
And first let's focus maybe on simply like music sales,
and if you want to bring in like concert tickets,
but like kind of pure numbers based.
Speaker 10 (15:28):
Yeah, what did you say, I mean, everyone's intuition here
is correct. Taylor Swift is very, very popular by the RIAA,
which is the organization in the US that certifies sales,
so they hand out like the gold and platinum records.
According to them, presently, Taylor Swift is the second best
selling artist of all time behind Drake. When I looked
(15:49):
at this a couple of years ago, number one was
still the Beatles, which is, you know, decades upon decades
of album sales. So Taylor Swift is very popular right now,
and I can't imagine a world, especially as Drake's star
has fallen, where she does not overtake him at some
point in terms of sales. It's worth pointing out, though,
(16:10):
that it's sort of an apples to oranges comparison.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, so yeah, can you explain kind of how it's
changed or how we measure these things.
Speaker 10 (16:17):
Yeah, so Billboard, who does the charts, the RIAA, they're
trying to figure out what the most popular records are,
which is on the surface seems very easy. But this
day and age, we can consume music in tons of
different ways. Back in the day, it was really just sales.
You went out, you purchase a record, that counts as
a sale. But even back then, there were some oddities
(16:38):
where if you put out a double album, so an
album with two discs, you know, the Wall by Pink
Floyd or the White Album by the Beatles, one purchase
of that counted as two sales.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Oh okay, I didn't know that.
Speaker 10 (16:50):
So there was always there's always be fye. Yeah, there's
always been weird chart behavior and weird things that artists
could do to try to run themselves up the charts
outside of just outright fraud, which was also you know,
that's a music industry classic. But it's more complicated now
because you still physical purchases which count the same. I
(17:10):
buy a piece of vinyl by By a CD that
counts as a sale. But there's also digital downloads and
there is also streams. So all of these bodies that
try to calculate popularity, the two biggest in the US
being the RIAA and Billboard, they equate digital downloads streams
in sales in some formula, So the RIA says one
(17:34):
hundred and fifty streams of a track equals one sale.
Fifteen hundred streams of songs on an album equals one
album sale. Now this seems arbitrary, and to a degree
it is. I mean, someone just has to decide if
you play a track one hundred and fifty times, that's
a sale. But I think even if you come up
(17:54):
with some logic like, oh, the revenue from one hundred
and fifty tracks is about equal to what someone would
say been purchasing it. Okay, there's you could you could
get to some logical explanation. But in the same sense,
streaming is much more passive. It's like, I'm going to
listen to every Drake record at least once, even if
I would never go out and purchase.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
A Drake, and it costs you basically nothing, just my time.
Speaker 10 (18:15):
Yeah, my time is my only expense. And if you
go back and look at like the ria's all time
best selling artist two years ago, it was mostly still
old timers, you know, the Beatles, Pink, Floyd, ACDC, Michael
Jackson's of the World. If you look at it today,
it's you still have a lot of those older acts,
but the top of the list is really dominated by
(18:38):
more recent acts who still do very well on streaming.
So I think streaming inflates these numbers to some degree
just by the way the math works, but also because
it's just it's more passive.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And thinking about it, like, Okay, if you buy a
CD or an album, how many times do you listen
to that?
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Like, say you went out in about the fifty cent album?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Sure, how many times do you think, yeah, yeah, take
us back there.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
How many times do you think you listen to that album?
Speaker 6 (19:02):
I mean over the I mean it takes years, I
think to Like, that's a lot of to that, man,
I mean it's a lot of listeners.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I'm almost arguing they should be lowering that number. Yeah,
I agree, And you're kind of thinking about it the
same way.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
Help me understand this. Is it accurate to say that
fifteen hundred different people listening to the same song once
is equal to one person buying the physical album.
Speaker 10 (19:26):
By the chart math, Yes, and it's not just The
other oddity is you don't have to listen to the
entire album if there's one really popular song. Oh and
it's the same with digital downloads. They say ten track
sales is equal to an album sale, but if you
have ten people purchase whatever the single is, that counts
as an album.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Sale, and then because there's playlists two like the Spotify playlist.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Yeah, it's getting extreamed when you didn't even seek it out.
Speaker 10 (19:52):
People always say music listening is much more passive today,
and I agree to in some sense that it is,
but it's not like back in the day. Like back
in the day passive. This thing which you would turn
on the radio or whatever CD I have in my
car is what's getting played.
Speaker 6 (20:05):
Earlier, we were talking about another example I'd love to
hear your thoughts on, which is this the weekend song
Blinding Lights, the most popular song, apparently the most popular
song in history. Now, I like that song, but why
is there such a discrepancy between that stat and how
like normal people feel about that song.
Speaker 10 (20:26):
Yeah, I've also think about this a lot. The other
one is I don't know if it's number one or
it's now up. There is a bar song Tipsy by
Shaozi Oh yeah, which is very popular. But they're those
songs are They're very popular, they're well liked, But I
think it's really a streaming phenomenon. We're streaming inflate stuff.
Whereas before Blinding Lights took over as Billboard's most popular
(20:49):
song of all time. Previously it was the Twist, and
I'm like, the Twist is clearly like a cultural touchstone.
Even if you're are young, you've probably heard the Twist
at least once or something like the macarena is like,
whereas Blinding Lights doesn't feel like that to me. And
I think part of that is there's like a cultural fracturing.
(21:11):
But I think additionally it's just that we count things differently,
Whereas before we were counting sales, and now we're counting
consumption or listening. Like the equivalent would be how many
times did you actually spin your copy of Hey Jude.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
By the Beatles?
Speaker 8 (21:24):
Ye?
Speaker 10 (21:25):
I don't know, Yeah, I've done it a lot.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
Why can't they just call it the most streamed song
of all time? It makes me think of like when
Watched the Throne came out, for example, and I had
to get in my car drive to best buy Wait
in the Line and then buy the album. That to me,
it doesn't seem fair that that is valued the same
as someone accidentally listening to a song today fift times
(21:52):
or fifteen hundred different people you know accidentally listening to
that song on a playlist or something.
Speaker 10 (21:57):
This is the magic of Taylor Swift is that she
can get people. They still go to Target and buy
eight different versions.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Can So can you elaborate on that, Like how big
of a factor do you think that is?
Speaker 10 (22:08):
I think that's huge. So they just announced that this
new album is gonna set the record for the most
physical sales in a single an opening week for an album.
It's going to best Adell's album twenty five. Now a
Dell's album twenty five. There's like no bonus track editions,
It's just the album. So you've got to assume most
people who purchase that are just a single person buying
(22:29):
the album. Where I think there's been like thirty different
versions of this Taylor Swift album created, and like each
one has a different bonus track.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Of this album.
Speaker 10 (22:38):
Yes, and there are different people who will go out
and buy every single copy. So I wish there was
a stat like how many unique people purchased the record
because I mean, she has a super rabid fan base.
I mean, you know you're talking concert tickets before the
Eras tour is the most lucrative tour of all time.
Even with all this weird chart math, still very very popular.
(23:01):
I mean, there's no there's no two ways about that.
Speaker 7 (23:04):
That's what makes it weird to me though, that she's
doing the bonus stuff. It's just like, you don't need
to do that, like you're Taylor Swift. You know this
is like btier artists like maneuvers, And it was weird
because you know, not to be this guy. But she
did say before this album came out, I'm not doing
the bonus track thing. You're getting just whatever the twelve
(23:24):
songs I'm putting out, or the twelve songs that are
going to be on the album, you can say, Okay,
they're not new songs, they're acoustic.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Versions or whatever.
Speaker 7 (23:32):
So maybe that's her workaround, yeah, but she made it
seem like she wasn't because she got a lot of
blowback for the last album for doing all these different iterations,
Like you're saying, Okay, I got to buy the album
six times to just get the six different bonus tracks. Yeah,
because each album only has one bonus track.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
It's crazy, and all the different versions are not like
on streaming right, like not to go half to actually
buy it.
Speaker 10 (23:54):
So everyone's always trying to game the system because if
you popularity begets popularity, you have a number one record,
you know, it's something to hang your hat on. More
people are gonna listen even if you're not a Taylor
Swift fan. And I tell you that it's the most
purchased album and the first week ever. Yeah, interest, Yeah,
you might go check it out. It's like, how the
greatest marketing for Thriller ever is just it's the greatest
(24:16):
selling album of all time.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So the main kind of question we're here is kind
of comparing Taylor to especially Michael Jackson, but also like
the Beatles and yeah, you know, so how how would
you say her stats compared to like, you know, peak
Beatlemania and then Michael Jackson.
Speaker 10 (24:40):
First of all, it's like, obviously it's an unanswerable question
because it is like Apple's to oranges comparison. But I
pulled some stuff that I think can inform the debate
a little. I feel like the only artists of the
twentieth century or the twenty first century you could really
compare Taylor Swift's popularity too, And I'm going back far
(25:00):
are bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson,
and maybe Madonna. But I think those older artists, like
the Frank Sinatras of the World very popular, but there
wasn't the media ecosystem that we have now. I think
the Beatles are the first example of an our artist
be me Elvis two that you can truly compare because
(25:22):
television was finally a thing. There was a very centralized
media ecosystem you could interact with, not just the music
the artists were putting out, but what they looked like
they were going to be on television. How long do
you think Beatlemania will last?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
As long as you all keep coming?
Speaker 10 (25:40):
And Michael Jackson obviously takes that to a completely different level.
And they also the Beatles are only together for like
ten years, but when they were around, stadium touring was
not a thing. Like they were the first artist to
play an outdoor stadium, which was the former Say Stadium
in Queens. So again it makes all comparisons hard, but
(26:01):
I think with Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift you can
sort of get an apples to apples comparison. And one
way I was looking at this was comparing his to
his last completed tour to the Aras tour. And I'll
give you a couple stats here that I think are interesting.
The arastour sold ten million tickets across one hundred and
forty nine shows, which is about sixty eight thousand per show,
(26:24):
was in twenty five countries, but eighty five percent of
the tour dates were either in the US, UK or Canada.
Michael Jackson's last completed world tour was his History World
Tour in ninety six to ninety seven, sold four and
a half million tickets across eighty two shows, which is
an average of fifty five thousand per show, which is less,
but only six dates, or seven percent of those dates
(26:46):
were in the US, UK and Canada. In fact, only
two shows are in the US and they were both
in Hawaii, which I thought was crazy. None were in Canada.
And he hits like a ton of countries that Taylor
Swift doesn't, like Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Roni or Russia. It's
not to say that Taylor Shift couldn't play any of
those places, but it As I was looking into this,
(27:07):
it just struck me how global Michael Jackson's fame was.
And there were some stats about when Taylor Swift took
the Aris tour to Europe, like twenty percent of tickets
in the Paris show were purchased by Americans. We're gonna
fly out now, people who love done that. So I
think Michael Jackson's fame is it's hard to quantify how
(27:28):
large it was. Another crazy fact, he was planning this
this is It tour and he died and it was
supposed to be ten nights at the two Arena in
the UK, which holds twenty thousand people. Because of demand,
they had to add forty more dates just for that arena. Yeah,
so it was gonna be fifty nights at one arena
in London.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
Well that was the whole thing because they were saying
that he wasn't in the condition to play that many shows,
and they were like, but the money looks really good
if we keep adding dates.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Forty is crazy total total of fifty.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
This is it. I mean, this is really it.
Speaker 5 (28:04):
This is the final curtain call. I'll see you in July.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I love you.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
That nineties History World tour. Easy to imagine that if
he added six to ten shows in the US like
New York, LA, Chicago, that it would probably eclipse or
at least match this the arastour.
Speaker 10 (28:29):
You yeah, you would, you would think.
Speaker 8 (28:32):
So.
Speaker 10 (28:32):
I think Michael Jackson's global theme. I think I don't
want to say Taylor Swift is a US phenomenon because
she's not. I mean she could. She's one of the
most famous people on Earth. I have I've had this
debate often with people, but who the most recognizable person
on Earth is outside of politicians and like the pope,
And I feel like she's she's got to be up there.
But I think we're obviously all in the US. I
(28:54):
think our fame is really magnified in the Western world,
whereas Michael Jackson was super famous in the US and
was constantly you know, in the tabloids for bad reasons,
but his fame really went across borders in a way
that I don't think we really see with other artists.
So I think Michael Jackson is the only the only
comparison point here. But otherwise, I mean, it's unprecedented.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
When it comes to stream sales, album sales. I have
kind of a like a bond Rip question to ask,
which is like, when you comparison an artist today to
someone in the eighties or seventies or sixties in the
US alone, Let's say there's like, isn't it the case
that there's like substantially more people.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Yes, today, I actually did have the same thought.
Speaker 10 (29:41):
No, that I also was thinking about that. That is
one hundred percent true. The population is much larger, Yeah, which.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
Is like, that's funny.
Speaker 10 (29:50):
I don't think people consider those very basic demographic questions
when you think about stuff like this in terms of
I guess, gross number of people. It's possible that even
if Taylor Swift has less goal will reach, she's reaching
more fans.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Yeah, I mentioned earlier. Yeah, interesting your piece that she wrote.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
I think in twenty twenty three you talked about kind
of her arc as an artist, in her longevity and
kind of what's unusual about it, like kind of peaking later.
Speaker 10 (30:18):
Pick your favorite artist. It's almost one hundred percent certain
that their most important works were released before they were thirty.
Popular music is a young person's game. It doesn't mean
older people don't put out great stuff, but in terms
of like the pop culture universe, it's it's a young
person's game. And Taylor Stiff was obviously famous, very very young,
but she her popularity I think is cresting. I mean,
(30:42):
I can't imagine getting bigger than this, but who knows.
When she's in her mid thirties, which is rare. I mean,
there are other superstars who maintain their popularity over time,
like Elton John's a good example. He was super famous
in the seventies, sort of fell off a bit in
the eighties, and then in the nineties he became like
a legacy act. But I think the thing that's special
(31:04):
about Taylor Swift. Are different about Taylor Swift is she
has made her legacy material and like her new material
sort of exists on the same plane where she still
feels culturally vital for the new things that she's doing,
while the old stuff also feels really vital. Actually, if
you'll let me read this quote. This is from a
(31:25):
critic named Stephen Hyde, and he's a great music writer
for up Rocks and someone it was like an ask
good the music critic column, and they said, will Taylorstoft's
popularity ever fade? And his observation here, I think really
points out why her fame is so unique. This is
the part of Taylor Swift's career that is unprecedented. She
(31:46):
has rather brilliantly convinced the public that her past and
present coexists right now. She's dismantled the former New work
versus old work binary for artist and replaced it with
the eras paradigm, where her songs are parceled into different
concurrent channels that are equal accessible. It's the same logic
that streaming platforms have taught us, where all music history
exists in the same bucket, and Taylor Swift has figured
(32:06):
out how to reprogram the public's internal algorithm better than
any of her competitors, so that her historical theme doesn't
count against her contemporary fame. She gets to be a
legacy act and irrelevant pop act simultaneously, which is why
I don't expect her fame to fade anytime soon. We
saw this with the re release of her record.
Speaker 7 (32:26):
Yeah yeah, I was just thinking, we haven't even talked
about which, in some ways I think really helped her popularity,
right because it felt like we kind of hit peak Taylor,
and then the re release has happened and it's like, okay, no,
we're still going up.
Speaker 10 (32:40):
That's some people have pointed out that they think had
COVID not happened, Taylor Swift would not have become as
big as she did. Obviously, she was already big, but
her popularity has sort of reached like a peak. And
then during COVID no one could go to concerts. She
puts out these two tomit acclaimed records, Folklore and Evermore
(33:03):
that you know, reprove to people like she's a very
seriously talented songwriter. And then you come out of COVID
and there was a huge demand for live events. She's
gonna put on this career spanning tour, and I think
that's a pretty good theory that she sort of benefited
from all that pent up demand.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
That quote sounds true even with kind of all the
criticism of the new album's getting where people seem a
lot of people seem disappointed with it, but like, I
still don't really see the stuff of like oh I
wish it sounded like Fearless or whatever, like whatever the
early YEA classic stuff is, Like I don't see the
same way with the Like we did an episode on
Kanye recently and like that very early on he was
(33:45):
getting like I want college drop out of like basically
by album three he was getting that, and like that's
more common than not. Is like people always want the
classic early thing and like, yeah, I've never really seen
that with her, even as she shifted from country to
pop and now to like whatever this new wave of
her pop is like it's not as much this like rabid,
(34:05):
like she fell off, you know, even if they are
disappointed with this album, it's.
Speaker 10 (34:10):
Like you don't you don't understand what she's doing.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, and it seems like, well, maybe next one she'll
be back, you know, or whatever. You know. And then
also in that sub sect post, you compared her to
Michael Bolton as far as like the timeline.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
Can you can you kind of run that back quickly?
Speaker 10 (34:26):
Yeah, So I was looking for a couple people in
this this piece about you know who who can we
compare Taylor Swift The arc of Taylor Swift's career. Two
Michael Bolton. If you were old enough, you'll recognize him
from like commercials in the nineties where they were selling
love song CDs and it was always how am I
supposed to Live without you? He's singing these big ballads.
(34:55):
But Michael Bolton's career started in the late seventies as
more of like a rock singer, and then he rebranded
himself and he reached the crest of his popularity like
fifteen years later in the nineties. Michael Botlan is in
No way close to as popular as Taylor Swift even
at his peak. Yeah, but like I what I was
trying to get it was the arc of his career,
like peaking later than your average person. Barbara Streisan's.
Speaker 5 (35:19):
Yeah, that was the other main one. You comped her.
Speaker 10 (35:22):
Two because and again this is just career arc where
barbar streisand's very popular from early in her career. You know,
she's like nineteen or twenty on Broadway putting out platinum records.
But I think her best selling record of all times
she didn't put out until nineteen eighty, which was I
think called Guilty. It was a collaboration with Barry Gibb
from the Beg's. So that's like, you know, twenty years
(35:44):
after your debut, you're releasing your most popular record. That's
not common, and that's something Taylor Swift is doing currently.
Most Like I said, most people, their most popular record
is usually one of their first couple records, and you
usually they're younger than thirty when it happens, not to
make all us thirty year olds, damn.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
So it's possible that her most popular song ever isn't
out yet.
Speaker 10 (36:13):
Taylor Swift, It's possible. I think over the long term,
it's highly unlikely.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
Because she's competing for herself now.
Speaker 10 (36:20):
Yeah, even if her fans are rabid for new music. Like,
if you're a very passive listener to Taylor Swift, the
songs you probably know are like blank Space, Shake it Off,
you Belong with Me.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
That's the best one sounds to me, like like.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
On like the White People list of just like you
just know all the lyrics to this, like my Osmosis,
like the Killers Born and.
Speaker 11 (36:41):
Yeah, like I just know this, Yeah, Like those are
two where are just like yeah, I just know everywhere
to this. Yeah, we all fall on the in the
group of people who think that, like it's kind of
impossible to compare really, uh, Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson
(37:02):
in terms of fame.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
But if you have, I think Michael Jackson's bigger.
Speaker 6 (37:07):
Well, you were with the kind of you were describing
how it's like kind of apples and oranges based on
the different environments of today, and.
Speaker 10 (37:16):
And uh, yeah, if if you had, if I had
gun your head into my head, Yeah, I'm still I'm
still gonna go with Michael Jackson in this for the
reasons we talked about it earlier, but I mean, Taylor
Swift's up there. It's like you're talking about unimaginable amounts
of fame.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yeah, and I will say this to Taylor's credit.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
I think the the odds are stacked against her in
a lot of ways because of the you know, how
culture is so fractured nowadays. Yeah, like I think, you know,
maybe if you know she was growing up in at
the same time period as Michael Jackson, maybe she would
be bigger.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
All right, well, thanks, Chris, if you want to plug
your book one more time.
Speaker 10 (37:54):
Oh yeah, well, Uncharted territory with numbers tell us about
the biggest hits, songs and ourselves. It's about how I
listened to every number one hit in history, and I
wrote a data driven history of popular music using that
crazy listening journey.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
All right, so we are back.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
So Chris just helpefully explained, you know, kind of how
music is even measured these days. And I think, you know,
as best as we could expect, answered our question as
far as how Taylor compares to Michael Jackson and others.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
What do you guys think? Are you satisfied? I think so.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
I mean we I think all three of us kind
of agreed that Michael Jackson is a bigger, more famous person.
I definitely had a little bit of like, well, I
wouldn't be surprised to learn something new here. When he
was talking about how Michael Jackson's tour like demographics were
just so much more diverse than that.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
That was a big thing to me that that confirmed
kind of what my intuition was was just like the
internetal effects. Yeah, when he's playing out the tour dates
and it's like he's barely even coming, he's not even
playing in the continental United.
Speaker 5 (39:07):
States, doesn't need to Like that's a different level.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
And like, obviously, yeah, anytime he could, he could just
be like I'm going to play Madison Square Garden for
three years, you know what I mean, Like.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
He could have done that at any point.
Speaker 7 (39:19):
Something that came to mind for me that you remember,
there used to be a debate and I think this
is pretty much settled now. At one point, and I
would say I was on the other side of this
debate at the time, was like who is bigger, Beyonce
or Taylor Swift. I think it's to say now that
Taylor Swift is bigger. I think some of that is
like Beyonce, I think intentionally like, yeah, it's making music
(39:41):
and has decided artistically to like move in a direction
that isn't as broad.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
Not focused on just getting the pop.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
And that's contributed to it.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
But at one point I would fight you on like
obviously Beyonce is, even if her music doesn't sell as much,
is more famous.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
Yea, and more of a cultural figure. Yes, at that Yeah,
I think probably before I say, pre aerostour.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, I was gonna yeah, I was gonna say basically
up to maybe the maybe you could go a little
earlier than but like, yeah, once we passed like the
nineteen eighty nine era, like the once we entered the
true pop star thing, that's when it's like, okay, now
it's like a contest.
Speaker 6 (40:17):
I remember my take from that debate being kind of
the inverse of this one, where I thought Taylor Swift
was probably more popular but that there was no contest
in terms of cultural influence or like impact.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, well it's it's basically the single Lady's Video is
so much more iconic than anything that Taylor Swift which
is put.
Speaker 5 (40:35):
Out, which of what connye Was point was, I mean,
it's like.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Disagree with his methods, but he was He's right, like,
you can see one frame of that blur out the
faces and you know what it is. I don't think
any tailorshift video really has that, even though I could
kind of describe some of them, but.
Speaker 7 (40:52):
Well, has any video impact of single Ladies and single Lady.
Speaker 5 (40:57):
Top five Swift songs?
Speaker 6 (40:59):
I don't, which would genuinely I don't know if I
can name five of them. That's why I'm like such
a bad right now, Okay, you got you Belong to Me,
which is a banger from my high school days. Is
reputation a song or just an album.
Speaker 7 (41:14):
Counter It's called Endgame, but the song is it's funny
because a reputation, but it's called Dames.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
Okay, okay, and what about does this album count?
Speaker 5 (41:27):
Probably?
Speaker 6 (41:28):
Okay, this sounds all right, then I could probably do it. Uh,
We're actually romantic, which is the Charlie XCX disc Redwood,
which is about Travis Kelsey's deck.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
It's not damn, man, just damn. I can't even folklore evermore.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
All right, we're gonna go out one song from Life
of a Showgirl. What song are we gonna play?
Speaker 5 (41:52):
I like open Light?
Speaker 4 (41:54):
Okay? Or yeah?
Speaker 5 (41:56):
I think that's the one.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
I like, Let's do Let's do twenty seconds ol.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Hell's Hell's, Hell's, Hell's Hells.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
No such Thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our
executive producers are Kid Osborne and Mangeshkidur. The show is
created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph. Theme
and credits song by Manny Fidel. Mixing is by Steve Bone.
Our guest this week is Chris Dalaiva. Find the link
to his newsletter and his upcoming book in the show
notes below. Thank you, Chris, and special thanks to Irene
Kim and her swifty friends. Visit No Such Thing dot
(42:38):
show to subscribe to our newsletter for more about this episode,
and if you have feedback for us or a question,
our email is Manny Noah Devin at gmail dot com.
You can also leave us a voicemail by calling the
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star review and write something nice about us.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
Wherever you're listening to this, it really helps a lot.
We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks
for listening.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Hells Hell's not such a thing.
Yeah, I'm manny I noh, and welcome to No such Thing,
the show where we set all our dumb arguments and
yours by actually doing the research. This week we find
out how popular Boring Barbie actually is.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
There's no no such thing, no such thing such, thank such,
thank touch, thank.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
So.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We're talking about Taylor Swift mainly. How did she capture
our collective attention so completely her new album It's sold
two point seven million copies in one day.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
This is something we've talked about a while because you
see big albums like this come out not only from her,
about anyone else, and it'll be like, this song just
broke this amazing record.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
This is the most popular song ever of all time.
And it never really makes sense.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
It's always like something like, yeah, a lot of people
listen to the Weekend Blinding Lights to me is not
the most popular song.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
Ever, right, even though it is.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Even though people listen to Yeah, people listen to him.
I don't think it's like, no one listens to that guy.
And we're curious, in the grand scheme of things, how
popular is a Taylor Swift compared to someone from the past,
like the Beatles or Michael Jackson. But before we get
into that, Okay, what everyone wants to know is what
do we think about Taylor Swift US three mid thirties
(01:23):
guys think so, you know, we'll get to that right
in the interest, so people don't even need to listen
to the rest of this.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
So what are your experiences with her?
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Well, let me start by saying, I genuinely have not
listened to much of her music, like I do. Remember
when I was in high school. You know, I'm on
the bleachers. What's as a song you Belong with Me?
You Belong with Me? And I thought that was really
catchy at the time. Fast forward, however, many years, like
I really haven't listened to much of it. I did
listen to this one, and my initial reaction was that,
(01:52):
you know, a lot of it sounded really well produced.
It's kind of pleasant to listen to in that way.
I am not unique in my reaction to like the lyrics.
I'll say, like, some of those were kind of like,
kind of mind bogglingly bad, but not so much worse
than like your average top forty pop fair.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
I'm not as swifty by any stretching.
Speaker 7 (02:15):
Imagine it's okay if you are, but I think I'm
out right now. Amongst the three of us, I'm definitely
the most in tune with.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
You've at least heard. Yeah, you keep up on mainstream
popular music.
Speaker 7 (02:27):
Yeah yeah, I usually give all the new albums at
least one listen through. You know, I dated a Swifty
for a while, so like it was at a certain
point my Apple Music would try to wreck you know,
you know, auto play tailor car Yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
I had to tell it to stop doing that.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
Swifty as in by Osmosis.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (02:45):
But my thoughts on this album, Okay, when we talk
about Taylor Swift, I'm a reputation fan.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Okay, I listened to that one. That was I think
the last album I listened to before this one.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
My favorite Endgame the Future in Edge, Big d Bars.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
The linkup was crazy incredible, So you know, I hope
we get back to their.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
This album compared to reputation.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
Not no, no, no no, this doesn't hold up to
reputation for me. Okay, Yeah, people are talking a lot
about the lyrics. I don't have much room to talk.
Some of my favorite artists have the most cringey lyrics.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
I think she gets a little bit picked on I
think because of the identity she's built around being a
song That's what I.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Was going to say.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I think the fandom hurts her in this case because
they they try to make sure she's built up to
be so highly esteemed as a songwriter and a lyricist
and all this, so that way when anything is not great,
like we wouldn't be this critical of Sabrina Carpenter or someone, yeah,
just because we don't think of her that way, because
people don't put her on that pedestal.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Yeah, I'm not upset at me, espresso, Do I know
what the fuck that means? That's fun, I mean whatever,
But yes.
Speaker 7 (04:00):
I do feel like too, Taylor's doing this thing where
she's like talking about the Internet on this album, right,
and I feel like once you get a certain level
of a rich you're just like out of touch with
the Internet in a way. But I do feel like
there is a sort of like she's singing about stuff
that feels like it's like.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Not ten years old, close to it, you know.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Yeah, well like yeah girl Battle Boston.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I listened to the album and then I was surprised
by the reaction being so negative.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
It seems just because it to my ears.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And this is the thing where it's like, if you're
really in this world, you're going to notice the differences
versus like I pop into some pop albums, not tailors
fifth albums. So it's like, to me, this doesn't sound
so dramatically different. But if I was like ahead, yeah,
I'd be able to be like, Okay, this is a
clear you know, clearly worse than before or clearly different
in this way. To me, it's not so dramatically different
(04:52):
than even like the really old stuff, yeah, sonically or lyrically. Yeah,
So you're saying that the songwriting is is bad, but Whires,
everyone's surprised. It's always kind of like this. I'm not
even saying it's bad even, but it sounds not so
dramatically different.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Yeah, it sounds about because I.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Listened to the album a few times now and it
kind of grew on me certain parts, certain songs. I
was like, Okay, there's actually at least a really good
piece here.
Speaker 6 (05:15):
Yeah. A lot of people were posting albums that other
female artists did at age thirty five versus a show girl. Yeah,
and it was like Beyonce Lemonade and the Joni Mitchell
album I can't remember. Yeah, there's like so many examples
of like kind of more mature, iconic mature music.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah. Yeah, that was listening to Life of a show Girl.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
There was parts where it was like, this sounds like
music for babies, And I mean that kind of respectfully.
Speaker 5 (05:45):
You got a private Tom, It's fun.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I actually think I like the album more than you guys,
But some of some music, when I'm listening to the lyrics,
I'm like, this just sounds like something for a little
kid to dance singing to.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
The sounds of it are just like, so.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Let's pop please in general, And to.
Speaker 6 (06:06):
Be fair, it's like probably kind of the goal, like, yeah,
it's a lot of.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
A bad thing. Yes, it's not very Uh there's not
much of an edge to it. Yeah, no, you know,
by design.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
Yeah. I think I see the harsh reaction in two
different ways. One is there's got to be some kind
of a fatigue. I think that's kind of what you
were talking about, where like the album doesn't really sound
that much different than the previous ones, and yet there's
a backlash.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
There's probably a little fatigue there.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
She kind of has to drink problem where she Na
always has to be making music always needs to be
in spotlight. I was like, it'd be interesting if she
just like dropped two songs, yeah, and not an album,
But she doesn't really do that.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So let's move on to kind of our question that
we're tackling. Do you guys think she is bigger than
Michael Jackson?
Speaker 6 (06:53):
What I would say is that Taylor Swift might be
more famous in that more people know who she is today,
but Michael Jackson. But Michael Jackson is a bigger.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Completed No, No, I think it's flipped.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I think I think she might well have technically sold
more records, yes, but I think Michael Jackson is way
more famous, especially if we're not talking about just America
like worldwide.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
You know what I mean, I forgot about you know
who Michael Jackson is. You know it's and like there's
symbols of him that you could show, like.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Kids are wearing Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Taylor Swift by face, a lot of people would recognize her,
but there's not like there's not like the red jacket,
like yeah, there's nothing like that, you.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Know, of what do you what do you think though?
Who do you think is more? You think Taylor Swift
is well.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
I would only say that in the sense that there
might be a chance that more people know who she is,
like today today, Michael Jackson's been dead for fifteen years
at least, and so I don't even I'm not saying
that more people know who she is. I'm just saying
I could see a world where now in terms of
like bigger, more, I don't.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Know the hedge. It's like impossible to guess.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
So you don't, you don't, you don't feel strongly. I
mean you think it could be a toss up.
Speaker 6 (08:00):
If it depends on age, I guess if you're thirty,
in up Michael Jackson.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
But the question is just more general, like in the world,
who's right now?
Speaker 6 (08:08):
If you serve the internationally, Michael Jackson is a bigger,
more known person.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And who do you think has sold more albums? However
you want to quantify that, like who sold more music?
Speaker 6 (08:21):
It's not fair, but Taylor Swift. It's not fair to
Michael Jackson had to get on a you have to
get on a bus to go buy his ship like today.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
But that's what you think.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
I think it's crazy to even.
Speaker 7 (08:39):
Suggest that Taylor Swift is bigger than Michael Jackson. Yeah,
I think Michael Jackson is, you know, besides Jesus, you know,
like the most popular person of all time, you know,
and it's beyond the music, right, It's like it's.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
A thing Jesus phenomenon. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
Like everyone knows who Michael Jackson is in in terms
of reach, right, Michael Jackson he was, you know, famous
when he was like five. He was in the industry
for a while. People who were very young knew who
Michael jacksons. We are very old know who Michael Jackson is.
People can name Michael Jackson songs. Taylor Swift feels a
(09:20):
bit like, sure, maybe there's name recognition, but I think
people know less about Taylor Swift outside of like she's
dating Travis Kelsey, Like people don't My mom isn't. No,
she couldn't name a Taylor Swift song. She couldn't sing
a Taylor Swift song. A lot of people who know
Taylor Swift is could not name anything about her music.
If you know who Michael Jackson is, you could probably
(09:41):
name one Michael Jackson song.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
To be fair to Taylor Swift, I don't think any
artists ever will reach that's level.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Fault of stardom.
Speaker 7 (09:49):
I think we're past that, We've passed the sort of
like everyone is listening to the same thing. Yeah, everything
is so much more fragmented nowadays that the closest we
have to like everybody's watching or listening to this thing,
Like what super Bowl halftime show?
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Yeah, yep, it's like the one moment we have a yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
And even that feels like decreasing.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
But yeah, where I come in on the kind of
impact sort of thing, It's like Michael Jackson is popular
across races, across ages, like you were saying, like across
the world, like like my parents listen to Michael Jackson,
your parents Like it's.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
Versus like Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It's like, you know, I have a very simple picture
of who in my mind is the Tailor Shift listener.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Obviously it's broader than that. Clearly based on the numbers,
it has to be. Yeah, But like a lot of
people would not.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Be able to name the Tailor Shift songs in the
way that many people of all types would be able
to name Michael Jackson songs and talk about him, like
you were saying, I am.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
Curious about like young people today, we can probably no
longer call ourselves young people, but people who are like
kids to teens, what their relationship to Michael Jackson?
Speaker 7 (10:57):
Yeah, my brother, well maybe because you know, up, my
brother knows who Michael Jackson is though.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Yeah, and like you seventeen seventeen.
Speaker 7 (11:05):
Yeah, like I'm seeing videos of like, you know, three
year old canting to Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, because you could picture if you know, we
had kids, Yes, they might hear Michael Jackson.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
Ye, because of us, and then they know who. That's
all it takes.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
Take Michael Jackson out of the equation, just like thriller. Right,
It's like every Halloween thriller is going to be played everywhere.
And even if you don't know that's a Michael Jackson thing,
it's like, well you know that song, you know that video.
Someone brought this up to me too when I was
talking to him about this conversation about like, do you
think a woman could ever be as popular as any
famous man in terms of musicians, And I was like,
(11:41):
actually no, because I think because women listen to female musicians,
and I think a lot of men will not listen. Yeah, women,
by a lot of well, straight men will not listening
to women musicians or you know, just because it's like
that's a girl thing.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, I think that's true because even like the most
praised like Beyonce album or whatever, Like whoever is the
most acceptable female star for men to listen to? I
don't think it would be Beyonce, but maybe yeah, you
just don't see.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
It reaching that height. Yeah at all.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So we're gonna take a break and when we come back,
we'll talk to someone who wrote a book crunching the
numbers when it comes to music data, and so hopefully
you can answer some of these questions. But first let's
hear from a few devoted Swifties about what the singer
means to them.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So, I think Taylor Swift is so important to me
and so special to me because of the way she's
able to paint all the emotions of the world into song.
You can feel the life just flowing through every single note, rhythm, melody.
It's infectious.
Speaker 8 (12:58):
I always said, you wrote the soundtrack to my life,
just because I fell in love for music in like
two thousand and six and it was like sixth grade.
I think around them, and even if I haven't been
through the things she's singing about, like she was singing
about breakups, and I had never had a relationship that
I'm like, oh my god, Like she gets my feelings
for me.
Speaker 9 (13:16):
What makes Taylor so special is her unhindered feminine voice,
the fact that she as a woman, can express her
feelings as a woman without having to be confined to.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
As much patriarchy.
Speaker 9 (13:31):
She still is complied to patriarchy, but the shackles of
patriarchy are lighter than they have ever been.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I kind of say she's created a better church, one
where there tends to be a higher bar in terms
of we don't want misogynists here, we don't want homophobic
people here. We love people who want to express themselves,
whether that's painting their nails or dressing up to go
to concerts.
Speaker 8 (13:56):
I mean, I think people will also sometimes reduce her
relatability to just like, oh, she's a basic white girl,
so all the basic white girls see them at her.
And I'm like, that's like a crazyly misogynistic things to
say that, like, oh, all these women are just so basic,
and that's like that's who supports her, and that's why
she's so famous. It's like, no, she has a lots
of reasons for it. But she also has like massive
fan bases in Asia South America, like so many countries
(14:18):
and so like, she has managed to find a way
to just kind of like tap into being relatable to everyone.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
So we are back.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
We're trying to figure out how Taylor Swift's success compares
to past superstars and guess some answers were joined by
Chris Stalareva. Chris Mind introducing herself.
Speaker 10 (14:45):
Yeah, sure, my name is Chris Stallareva. I feel like
I should say that again. I work in the music business.
I work for a music streaming company called audio Mac,
which is more like the SoundCloud universe. People could upload directly,
and we're very popular in Africa and the Caribbean and
I do the data analytics work there. But outside of
my job, I do a lot of writing about music
(15:05):
and data. I have a relatively popular newsletter and I
have a book coming out called Uncharted Territory, which is
a data driven history of popular music. So I'm very
much in the music data sphere.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
So I guess let's kind of get straight into it.
How popular is Tailor Swift?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
And first let's focus maybe on simply like music sales,
and if you want to bring in like concert tickets,
but like kind of pure numbers based.
Speaker 10 (15:28):
Yeah, what did you say, I mean, everyone's intuition here
is correct. Taylor Swift is very, very popular by the RIAA,
which is the organization in the US that certifies sales,
so they hand out like the gold and platinum records.
According to them, presently, Taylor Swift is the second best
selling artist of all time behind Drake. When I looked
(15:49):
at this a couple of years ago, number one was
still the Beatles, which is, you know, decades upon decades
of album sales. So Taylor Swift is very popular right now,
and I can't imagine a world, especially as Drake's star
has fallen, where she does not overtake him at some
point in terms of sales. It's worth pointing out, though,
(16:10):
that it's sort of an apples to oranges comparison.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, so yeah, can you explain kind of how it's
changed or how we measure these things.
Speaker 10 (16:17):
Yeah, so Billboard, who does the charts, the RIAA, they're
trying to figure out what the most popular records are,
which is on the surface seems very easy. But this
day and age, we can consume music in tons of
different ways. Back in the day, it was really just sales.
You went out, you purchase a record, that counts as
a sale. But even back then, there were some oddities
(16:38):
where if you put out a double album, so an
album with two discs, you know, the Wall by Pink
Floyd or the White Album by the Beatles, one purchase
of that counted as two sales.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Oh okay, I didn't know that.
Speaker 10 (16:50):
So there was always there's always be fye. Yeah, there's
always been weird chart behavior and weird things that artists
could do to try to run themselves up the charts
outside of just outright fraud, which was also you know,
that's a music industry classic. But it's more complicated now
because you still physical purchases which count the same. I
(17:10):
buy a piece of vinyl by By a CD that
counts as a sale. But there's also digital downloads and
there is also streams. So all of these bodies that
try to calculate popularity, the two biggest in the US
being the RIAA and Billboard, they equate digital downloads streams
in sales in some formula, So the RIA says one
(17:34):
hundred and fifty streams of a track equals one sale.
Fifteen hundred streams of songs on an album equals one
album sale. Now this seems arbitrary, and to a degree
it is. I mean, someone just has to decide if
you play a track one hundred and fifty times, that's
a sale. But I think even if you come up
(17:54):
with some logic like, oh, the revenue from one hundred
and fifty tracks is about equal to what someone would
say been purchasing it. Okay, there's you could you could
get to some logical explanation. But in the same sense,
streaming is much more passive. It's like, I'm going to
listen to every Drake record at least once, even if
I would never go out and purchase.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
A Drake, and it costs you basically nothing, just my time.
Speaker 10 (18:15):
Yeah, my time is my only expense. And if you
go back and look at like the ria's all time
best selling artist two years ago, it was mostly still
old timers, you know, the Beatles, Pink, Floyd, ACDC, Michael
Jackson's of the World. If you look at it today,
it's you still have a lot of those older acts,
but the top of the list is really dominated by
(18:38):
more recent acts who still do very well on streaming.
So I think streaming inflates these numbers to some degree
just by the way the math works, but also because
it's just it's more passive.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And thinking about it, like, Okay, if you buy a
CD or an album, how many times do you listen
to that?
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Like, say you went out in about the fifty cent album?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Sure, how many times do you think, yeah, yeah, take
us back there.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
How many times do you think you listen to that album?
Speaker 6 (19:02):
I mean over the I mean it takes years, I
think to Like, that's a lot of to that, man,
I mean it's a lot of listeners.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I'm almost arguing they should be lowering that number. Yeah,
I agree, And you're kind of thinking about it the
same way.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
Help me understand this. Is it accurate to say that
fifteen hundred different people listening to the same song once
is equal to one person buying the physical album.
Speaker 10 (19:26):
By the chart math, Yes, and it's not just The
other oddity is you don't have to listen to the
entire album if there's one really popular song. Oh and
it's the same with digital downloads. They say ten track
sales is equal to an album sale, but if you
have ten people purchase whatever the single is, that counts
as an album.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Sale, and then because there's playlists two like the Spotify playlist.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Yeah, it's getting extreamed when you didn't even seek it out.
Speaker 10 (19:52):
People always say music listening is much more passive today,
and I agree to in some sense that it is,
but it's not like back in the day. Like back
in the day passive. This thing which you would turn
on the radio or whatever CD I have in my
car is what's getting played.
Speaker 6 (20:05):
Earlier, we were talking about another example I'd love to
hear your thoughts on, which is this the weekend song
Blinding Lights, the most popular song, apparently the most popular
song in history. Now, I like that song, but why
is there such a discrepancy between that stat and how
like normal people feel about that song.
Speaker 10 (20:26):
Yeah, I've also think about this a lot. The other
one is I don't know if it's number one or
it's now up. There is a bar song Tipsy by
Shaozi Oh yeah, which is very popular. But they're those
songs are They're very popular, they're well liked, But I
think it's really a streaming phenomenon. We're streaming inflate stuff.
Whereas before Blinding Lights took over as Billboard's most popular
(20:49):
song of all time. Previously it was the Twist, and
I'm like, the Twist is clearly like a cultural touchstone.
Even if you're are young, you've probably heard the Twist
at least once or something like the macarena is like,
whereas Blinding Lights doesn't feel like that to me. And
I think part of that is there's like a cultural fracturing.
(21:11):
But I think additionally it's just that we count things differently,
Whereas before we were counting sales, and now we're counting
consumption or listening. Like the equivalent would be how many
times did you actually spin your copy of Hey Jude.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
By the Beatles?
Speaker 8 (21:24):
Ye?
Speaker 10 (21:25):
I don't know, Yeah, I've done it a lot.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
Why can't they just call it the most streamed song
of all time? It makes me think of like when
Watched the Throne came out, for example, and I had
to get in my car drive to best buy Wait
in the Line and then buy the album. That to me,
it doesn't seem fair that that is valued the same
as someone accidentally listening to a song today fift times
(21:52):
or fifteen hundred different people you know accidentally listening to
that song on a playlist or something.
Speaker 10 (21:57):
This is the magic of Taylor Swift is that she
can get people. They still go to Target and buy
eight different versions.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Can So can you elaborate on that, Like how big
of a factor do you think that is?
Speaker 10 (22:08):
I think that's huge. So they just announced that this
new album is gonna set the record for the most
physical sales in a single an opening week for an album.
It's going to best Adell's album twenty five. Now a
Dell's album twenty five. There's like no bonus track editions,
It's just the album. So you've got to assume most
people who purchase that are just a single person buying
(22:29):
the album. Where I think there's been like thirty different
versions of this Taylor Swift album created, and like each
one has a different bonus track.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Of this album.
Speaker 10 (22:38):
Yes, and there are different people who will go out
and buy every single copy. So I wish there was
a stat like how many unique people purchased the record
because I mean, she has a super rabid fan base.
I mean, you know you're talking concert tickets before the
Eras tour is the most lucrative tour of all time.
Even with all this weird chart math, still very very popular.
(23:01):
I mean, there's no there's no two ways about that.
Speaker 7 (23:04):
That's what makes it weird to me though, that she's
doing the bonus stuff. It's just like, you don't need
to do that, like you're Taylor Swift. You know this
is like btier artists like maneuvers, And it was weird
because you know, not to be this guy. But she
did say before this album came out, I'm not doing
the bonus track thing. You're getting just whatever the twelve
(23:24):
songs I'm putting out, or the twelve songs that are
going to be on the album, you can say, Okay,
they're not new songs, they're acoustic.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Versions or whatever.
Speaker 7 (23:32):
So maybe that's her workaround, yeah, but she made it
seem like she wasn't because she got a lot of
blowback for the last album for doing all these different iterations,
Like you're saying, Okay, I got to buy the album
six times to just get the six different bonus tracks. Yeah,
because each album only has one bonus track.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
It's crazy, and all the different versions are not like
on streaming right, like not to go half to actually
buy it.
Speaker 10 (23:54):
So everyone's always trying to game the system because if
you popularity begets popularity, you have a number one record,
you know, it's something to hang your hat on. More
people are gonna listen even if you're not a Taylor
Swift fan. And I tell you that it's the most
purchased album and the first week ever. Yeah, interest, Yeah,
you might go check it out. It's like, how the
greatest marketing for Thriller ever is just it's the greatest
(24:16):
selling album of all time.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So the main kind of question we're here is kind
of comparing Taylor to especially Michael Jackson, but also like
the Beatles and yeah, you know, so how how would
you say her stats compared to like, you know, peak
Beatlemania and then Michael Jackson.
Speaker 10 (24:40):
First of all, it's like, obviously it's an unanswerable question
because it is like Apple's to oranges comparison. But I
pulled some stuff that I think can inform the debate
a little. I feel like the only artists of the
twentieth century or the twenty first century you could really
compare Taylor Swift's popularity too, And I'm going back far
(25:00):
are bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson,
and maybe Madonna. But I think those older artists, like
the Frank Sinatras of the World very popular, but there
wasn't the media ecosystem that we have now. I think
the Beatles are the first example of an our artist
be me Elvis two that you can truly compare because
(25:22):
television was finally a thing. There was a very centralized
media ecosystem you could interact with, not just the music
the artists were putting out, but what they looked like
they were going to be on television. How long do
you think Beatlemania will last?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
As long as you all keep coming?
Speaker 10 (25:40):
And Michael Jackson obviously takes that to a completely different level.
And they also the Beatles are only together for like
ten years, but when they were around, stadium touring was
not a thing. Like they were the first artist to
play an outdoor stadium, which was the former Say Stadium
in Queens. So again it makes all comparisons hard, but
(26:01):
I think with Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift you can
sort of get an apples to apples comparison. And one
way I was looking at this was comparing his to
his last completed tour to the Aras tour. And I'll
give you a couple stats here that I think are interesting.
The arastour sold ten million tickets across one hundred and
forty nine shows, which is about sixty eight thousand per show,
(26:24):
was in twenty five countries, but eighty five percent of
the tour dates were either in the US, UK or Canada.
Michael Jackson's last completed world tour was his History World
Tour in ninety six to ninety seven, sold four and
a half million tickets across eighty two shows, which is
an average of fifty five thousand per show, which is less,
but only six dates, or seven percent of those dates
(26:46):
were in the US, UK and Canada. In fact, only
two shows are in the US and they were both
in Hawaii, which I thought was crazy. None were in Canada.
And he hits like a ton of countries that Taylor
Swift doesn't, like Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Roni or Russia. It's
not to say that Taylor Shift couldn't play any of
those places, but it As I was looking into this,
(27:07):
it just struck me how global Michael Jackson's fame was.
And there were some stats about when Taylor Swift took
the Aris tour to Europe, like twenty percent of tickets
in the Paris show were purchased by Americans. We're gonna
fly out now, people who love done that. So I
think Michael Jackson's fame is it's hard to quantify how
(27:28):
large it was. Another crazy fact, he was planning this
this is It tour and he died and it was
supposed to be ten nights at the two Arena in
the UK, which holds twenty thousand people. Because of demand,
they had to add forty more dates just for that arena. Yeah,
so it was gonna be fifty nights at one arena
in London.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
Well that was the whole thing because they were saying
that he wasn't in the condition to play that many shows,
and they were like, but the money looks really good
if we keep adding dates.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Forty is crazy total total of fifty.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
This is it. I mean, this is really it.
Speaker 5 (28:04):
This is the final curtain call. I'll see you in July.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I love you.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
That nineties History World tour. Easy to imagine that if
he added six to ten shows in the US like
New York, LA, Chicago, that it would probably eclipse or
at least match this the arastour.
Speaker 10 (28:29):
You yeah, you would, you would think.
Speaker 8 (28:32):
So.
Speaker 10 (28:32):
I think Michael Jackson's global theme. I think I don't
want to say Taylor Swift is a US phenomenon because
she's not. I mean she could. She's one of the
most famous people on Earth. I have I've had this
debate often with people, but who the most recognizable person
on Earth is outside of politicians and like the pope,
And I feel like she's she's got to be up there.
But I think we're obviously all in the US. I
(28:54):
think our fame is really magnified in the Western world,
whereas Michael Jackson was super famous in the US and
was constantly you know, in the tabloids for bad reasons,
but his fame really went across borders in a way
that I don't think we really see with other artists.
So I think Michael Jackson is the only the only
comparison point here. But otherwise, I mean, it's unprecedented.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
When it comes to stream sales, album sales. I have
kind of a like a bond Rip question to ask,
which is like, when you comparison an artist today to
someone in the eighties or seventies or sixties in the
US alone, Let's say there's like, isn't it the case
that there's like substantially more people.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Yes, today, I actually did have the same thought.
Speaker 10 (29:41):
No, that I also was thinking about that. That is
one hundred percent true. The population is much larger, Yeah, which.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
Is like, that's funny.
Speaker 10 (29:50):
I don't think people consider those very basic demographic questions
when you think about stuff like this in terms of
I guess, gross number of people. It's possible that even
if Taylor Swift has less goal will reach, she's reaching
more fans.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Yeah, I mentioned earlier. Yeah, interesting your piece that she wrote.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
I think in twenty twenty three you talked about kind
of her arc as an artist, in her longevity and
kind of what's unusual about it, like kind of peaking later.
Speaker 10 (30:18):
Pick your favorite artist. It's almost one hundred percent certain
that their most important works were released before they were thirty.
Popular music is a young person's game. It doesn't mean
older people don't put out great stuff, but in terms
of like the pop culture universe, it's it's a young
person's game. And Taylor Stiff was obviously famous, very very young,
but she her popularity I think is cresting. I mean,
(30:42):
I can't imagine getting bigger than this, but who knows.
When she's in her mid thirties, which is rare. I mean,
there are other superstars who maintain their popularity over time,
like Elton John's a good example. He was super famous
in the seventies, sort of fell off a bit in
the eighties, and then in the nineties he became like
a legacy act. But I think the thing that's special
(31:04):
about Taylor Swift. Are different about Taylor Swift is she
has made her legacy material and like her new material
sort of exists on the same plane where she still
feels culturally vital for the new things that she's doing,
while the old stuff also feels really vital. Actually, if
you'll let me read this quote. This is from a
(31:25):
critic named Stephen Hyde, and he's a great music writer
for up Rocks and someone it was like an ask
good the music critic column, and they said, will Taylorstoft's
popularity ever fade? And his observation here, I think really
points out why her fame is so unique. This is
the part of Taylor Swift's career that is unprecedented. She
(31:46):
has rather brilliantly convinced the public that her past and
present coexists right now. She's dismantled the former New work
versus old work binary for artist and replaced it with
the eras paradigm, where her songs are parceled into different
concurrent channels that are equal accessible. It's the same logic
that streaming platforms have taught us, where all music history
exists in the same bucket, and Taylor Swift has figured
(32:06):
out how to reprogram the public's internal algorithm better than
any of her competitors, so that her historical theme doesn't
count against her contemporary fame. She gets to be a
legacy act and irrelevant pop act simultaneously, which is why
I don't expect her fame to fade anytime soon. We
saw this with the re release of her record.
Speaker 7 (32:26):
Yeah yeah, I was just thinking, we haven't even talked
about which, in some ways I think really helped her popularity,
right because it felt like we kind of hit peak Taylor,
and then the re release has happened and it's like, okay, no,
we're still going up.
Speaker 10 (32:40):
That's some people have pointed out that they think had
COVID not happened, Taylor Swift would not have become as
big as she did. Obviously, she was already big, but
her popularity has sort of reached like a peak. And
then during COVID no one could go to concerts. She
puts out these two tomit acclaimed records, Folklore and Evermore
(33:03):
that you know, reprove to people like she's a very
seriously talented songwriter. And then you come out of COVID
and there was a huge demand for live events. She's
gonna put on this career spanning tour, and I think
that's a pretty good theory that she sort of benefited
from all that pent up demand.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
That quote sounds true even with kind of all the
criticism of the new album's getting where people seem a
lot of people seem disappointed with it, but like, I
still don't really see the stuff of like oh I
wish it sounded like Fearless or whatever, like whatever the
early YEA classic stuff is, Like I don't see the
same way with the Like we did an episode on
Kanye recently and like that very early on he was
(33:45):
getting like I want college drop out of like basically
by album three he was getting that, and like that's
more common than not. Is like people always want the
classic early thing and like, yeah, I've never really seen
that with her, even as she shifted from country to
pop and now to like whatever this new wave of
her pop is like it's not as much this like rabid,
(34:05):
like she fell off, you know, even if they are
disappointed with this album, it's.
Speaker 10 (34:10):
Like you don't you don't understand what she's doing.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, and it seems like, well, maybe next one she'll
be back, you know, or whatever. You know. And then
also in that sub sect post, you compared her to
Michael Bolton as far as like the timeline.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
Can you can you kind of run that back quickly?
Speaker 10 (34:26):
Yeah, So I was looking for a couple people in
this this piece about you know who who can we
compare Taylor Swift The arc of Taylor Swift's career. Two
Michael Bolton. If you were old enough, you'll recognize him
from like commercials in the nineties where they were selling
love song CDs and it was always how am I
supposed to Live without you? He's singing these big ballads.
(34:55):
But Michael Bolton's career started in the late seventies as
more of like a rock singer, and then he rebranded
himself and he reached the crest of his popularity like
fifteen years later in the nineties. Michael Botlan is in
No way close to as popular as Taylor Swift even
at his peak. Yeah, but like I what I was
trying to get it was the arc of his career,
like peaking later than your average person. Barbara Streisan's.
Speaker 5 (35:19):
Yeah, that was the other main one. You comped her.
Speaker 10 (35:22):
Two because and again this is just career arc where
barbar streisand's very popular from early in her career. You know,
she's like nineteen or twenty on Broadway putting out platinum records.
But I think her best selling record of all times
she didn't put out until nineteen eighty, which was I
think called Guilty. It was a collaboration with Barry Gibb
from the Beg's. So that's like, you know, twenty years
(35:44):
after your debut, you're releasing your most popular record. That's
not common, and that's something Taylor Swift is doing currently.
Most Like I said, most people, their most popular record
is usually one of their first couple records, and you
usually they're younger than thirty when it happens, not to
make all us thirty year olds, damn.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
So it's possible that her most popular song ever isn't
out yet.
Speaker 10 (36:13):
Taylor Swift, It's possible. I think over the long term,
it's highly unlikely.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
Because she's competing for herself now.
Speaker 10 (36:20):
Yeah, even if her fans are rabid for new music. Like,
if you're a very passive listener to Taylor Swift, the
songs you probably know are like blank Space, Shake it Off,
you Belong with Me.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
That's the best one sounds to me, like like.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
On like the White People list of just like you
just know all the lyrics to this, like my Osmosis,
like the Killers Born and.
Speaker 11 (36:41):
Yeah, like I just know this, Yeah, Like those are
two where are just like yeah, I just know everywhere
to this. Yeah, we all fall on the in the
group of people who think that, like it's kind of
impossible to compare really, uh, Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson
(37:02):
in terms of fame.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
But if you have, I think Michael Jackson's bigger.
Speaker 6 (37:07):
Well, you were with the kind of you were describing
how it's like kind of apples and oranges based on
the different environments of today, and.
Speaker 10 (37:16):
And uh, yeah, if if you had, if I had
gun your head into my head, Yeah, I'm still I'm
still gonna go with Michael Jackson in this for the
reasons we talked about it earlier, but I mean, Taylor
Swift's up there. It's like you're talking about unimaginable amounts
of fame.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yeah, and I will say this to Taylor's credit.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
I think the the odds are stacked against her in
a lot of ways because of the you know, how
culture is so fractured nowadays. Yeah, like I think, you know,
maybe if you know she was growing up in at
the same time period as Michael Jackson, maybe she would
be bigger.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
All right, well, thanks, Chris, if you want to plug
your book one more time.
Speaker 10 (37:54):
Oh yeah, well, Uncharted territory with numbers tell us about
the biggest hits, songs and ourselves. It's about how I
listened to every number one hit in history, and I
wrote a data driven history of popular music using that
crazy listening journey.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
All right, so we are back.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
So Chris just helpefully explained, you know, kind of how
music is even measured these days. And I think, you know,
as best as we could expect, answered our question as
far as how Taylor compares to Michael Jackson and others.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
What do you guys think? Are you satisfied? I think so.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
I mean we I think all three of us kind
of agreed that Michael Jackson is a bigger, more famous person.
I definitely had a little bit of like, well, I
wouldn't be surprised to learn something new here. When he
was talking about how Michael Jackson's tour like demographics were
just so much more diverse than that.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
That was a big thing to me that that confirmed
kind of what my intuition was was just like the
internetal effects. Yeah, when he's playing out the tour dates
and it's like he's barely even coming, he's not even
playing in the continental United.
Speaker 5 (39:07):
States, doesn't need to Like that's a different level.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
And like, obviously, yeah, anytime he could, he could just
be like I'm going to play Madison Square Garden for
three years, you know what I mean, Like.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
He could have done that at any point.
Speaker 7 (39:19):
Something that came to mind for me that you remember,
there used to be a debate and I think this
is pretty much settled now. At one point, and I
would say I was on the other side of this
debate at the time, was like who is bigger, Beyonce
or Taylor Swift. I think it's to say now that
Taylor Swift is bigger. I think some of that is
like Beyonce, I think intentionally like, yeah, it's making music
(39:41):
and has decided artistically to like move in a direction
that isn't as broad.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
Not focused on just getting the pop.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
And that's contributed to it.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
But at one point I would fight you on like
obviously Beyonce is, even if her music doesn't sell as much,
is more famous.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
Yea, and more of a cultural figure. Yes, at that Yeah,
I think probably before I say, pre aerostour.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, I was gonna yeah, I was gonna say basically
up to maybe the maybe you could go a little
earlier than but like, yeah, once we passed like the
nineteen eighty nine era, like the once we entered the
true pop star thing, that's when it's like, okay, now
it's like a contest.
Speaker 6 (40:17):
I remember my take from that debate being kind of
the inverse of this one, where I thought Taylor Swift
was probably more popular but that there was no contest
in terms of cultural influence or like impact.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, well it's it's basically the single Lady's Video is
so much more iconic than anything that Taylor Swift which
is put.
Speaker 5 (40:35):
Out, which of what connye Was point was, I mean,
it's like.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Disagree with his methods, but he was He's right, like,
you can see one frame of that blur out the
faces and you know what it is. I don't think
any tailorshift video really has that, even though I could
kind of describe some of them, but.
Speaker 7 (40:52):
Well, has any video impact of single Ladies and single Lady.
Speaker 5 (40:57):
Top five Swift songs?
Speaker 6 (40:59):
I don't, which would genuinely I don't know if I
can name five of them. That's why I'm like such
a bad right now, Okay, you got you Belong to Me,
which is a banger from my high school days. Is
reputation a song or just an album.
Speaker 7 (41:14):
Counter It's called Endgame, but the song is it's funny
because a reputation, but it's called Dames.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
Okay, okay, and what about does this album count?
Speaker 5 (41:27):
Probably?
Speaker 6 (41:28):
Okay, this sounds all right, then I could probably do it. Uh,
We're actually romantic, which is the Charlie XCX disc Redwood,
which is about Travis Kelsey's deck.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
It's not damn, man, just damn. I can't even folklore evermore.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
All right, we're gonna go out one song from Life
of a Showgirl. What song are we gonna play?
Speaker 5 (41:52):
I like open Light?
Speaker 4 (41:54):
Okay? Or yeah?
Speaker 5 (41:56):
I think that's the one.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
I like, Let's do Let's do twenty seconds ol.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Hell's Hell's, Hell's, Hell's Hells.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
No such Thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our
executive producers are Kid Osborne and Mangeshkidur. The show is
created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph. Theme
and credits song by Manny Fidel. Mixing is by Steve Bone.
Our guest this week is Chris Dalaiva. Find the link
to his newsletter and his upcoming book in the show
notes below. Thank you, Chris, and special thanks to Irene
Kim and her swifty friends. Visit No Such Thing dot
(42:38):
show to subscribe to our newsletter for more about this episode,
and if you have feedback for us or a question,
our email is Manny Noah Devin at gmail dot com.
You can also leave us a voicemail by calling the
number in our show notes. And if you've made it
this far and don't hate us, please leave a five
star review and write something nice about us.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
Wherever you're listening to this, it really helps a lot.
We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks
for listening.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Hells Hell's not such a thing.
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