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I was referring to the number of 10+ million sellers. Mariah has 7, then one album at 9m+, but then everything else is at 3 million or less. Celine has 6, a 7th at 7 million, then the rest at 5 million or less. Behind her 9 10+ million albums, Madonna has Erotica at 9m, but it is virtually dead by now.
Taylor is still active / popular. Her first 7 albums can all get there with 20-ish years of sales, as I don't think Lover is any weaker than, say, Bedtime Stories.
One thing that people's perception hasn't adjust in the streaming world is the strength of a catalog. In the past, because of availability limitations, after the promotion of a pop album, it started to sell tiny amounts because it was removed from non-specialized retailers' shelves. This opened the door to strong compilation sales every 10 years or so. Now there is no more greatest hits packages released (see all the main stars from mid-00s to now) so one may believe this catalog strength is dead. It's not true. Instead, it's visible through organic streaming, week after week, month after month. Strong catalog albums from recent years can easily score 1 million daily streams on Spotify alone. Across all platforms, that would be about 1,000 sales per day. While it doesn't sound like much, it's over a million EAS every 3 years, for 1 album only, with audio streams only. 1989 is gaining about 1.5 million per day for example.
In general terms, I do think that we are underrating what the top stars of the last 15 years are doing - if we focus on female singers, this refers to Taylor, Adele, Rihanna, Beyoncé, with Gaga still having a shot to join them. We tend to speak always about the big 5 (Madonna / Celine / Mariah / Whitney / Barbra), acting as if they were forever untouchable. Of course, they are on 150+ million, while the mid-00s generation is on 70-90 million. But the ongoing strength of their respective catalogs coupled to the appeal they still have to sell new records mean that the real gap is much, much smaller. Taylor / Adele / Rihanna will join 100 million quite soon while racing much faster than the original divas. To me, they are all virtually already up to 110-120 million, meaning that if they stop being popular with new releases, they will still get there in 25 years. Thus, it doesn't take them many more strong eras to fill in the gap with their elders. A bit like how Eminem is still under Elton / U2 / Celine in numbers, but adding the ongoing pace of their respective catalogs I consider him to be virtually ahead.
I think features should be counted 70/30 and duets like 50/50, not 100% of sales/streams for both artists.
Many artists benefit from this, especially rappers.
Rihanna also has 20m orphan sales due to her high number of features and 1 more album than Taylor. I think its important to point that out. Album equivalents, Taylor is ahead.
I have two questions. First, why did you count digital downloads in China, as compilations? And second, do you count pre-sales too? And if you don't, why not?
Hi MJD,
Her numbers are truly insane and Lover seems to go to very good numbers too !!
Reputation seems to have pale numbers after 1989 but +7M is still huge !!
But I think that Rihanna and Adele will reach the 100M before Taylor, because even if Lover has 10M, her total would be 90-92M, and I don't think it will reach it for now. On the other hand, Rihanna is at 92M and her return is highly anticipated and we can assume that see will destroy everything in streaming (if everything goes well of course)
Same for Adele, her last album is at +25M, i think she will make huge numbers too.
So the numbers of Adele and Rihanna will increase way faster than Taylor (unless a very huge flop for their lead), that's why I think they'll reach the 100M milestone before Taylor.
Thank you for this insightful post MJD! Your foresight into the streaming world is much appreciated.
Hi MJD
I respect your work. Keep doing.
I just don't agree with you at something. I think Taylor is biggest western artist "by far".
According to China goverment, Taylor will play at stadium in 11 november in Guangzhou to 60 thousands people. No western artist from this generation didn't even try to play to small stadiums like 40 thousand people. This is very telling. And she will probably play multiple stadiums there in her next "tour".
What you said is not completely right. Chinese physical album sales were still very healthy for idols. For example, 1989 shipped 5xP=100k before she toured there, and then, it jumped to 250k up to date, because her popularity was actually later boomed in China, mostly after Reputation era. Surex those were all physical sales, without any digital. No legitimate digital copies were sold in China before QQ Music era. And Reputation sold over 100k physical copies in China. These figures were counted by Starsing Music, the company who only release physical albums in China, and only they sold Taylor albums. They got the copyright. BTS new album sold around 600k physical copies in China, and another 400k digital copies. However, the 600k physical copies are all imports from Korea, only counted into Gaon. But they are all actually from China, these sales were counted by Chinese idol app, because fans only buy idols' albums on idol app so they can buy multiple imports to reach big sales.
Hi Matt!
Do you agree about features/duets counting 100% of sales/streams for artists? It doesn't make sense to me.
Well I agree because they split royaltys right? Let's say a track cost $1. The record company pays out 15 cents to the songwriters. If Rhinna and Eminem wrote that song, they wouldn't get 15 cents each. They'd get 7.5 cents each.
i think it would be a good idea if we kept track and publicly what the increase in sales are for each update......it's fascinating info that takes no extra effort
I'm not even talking about songwriting credit, Zayn didn't write the song IDWLF and the total of sales/streams counts for him, it should be 50% maximum because it's a duet in this case.
The chart points of songs are divided when it's a feature/duet in the Billboard Hot 100.
