Hi again TVL20!

There is really no match, Drake is ahead in total SPS units for albums issued this decade, and if we add the rest, then he has countless hit singles outside of his albums that did better combined than Taylor's and catalog units of her first records. This summer only he has got 2 Top 10 hits.

About certifications, they are the real thing. Labels / artists are paid on what they sell, and what they sell is their sales to retailers. Also Soundscan is very recent in comparison to certs, and then there is no Soundscan everywhere either. At the end of the day, if we want consistent figures based on the same methodology for all markets, only net shipments matter. Club sales are a part of them so they are naturally counted as well.

Numbers wrote inside the article are estimates for her US net shipments. They are slightly higher than Soundscan figures in part because there is the Karaoke versions included as well.

Hi MJD
What is your method for China equivalent albums sales? I don't find it true to take 1 small stream platform and multiple it to music market's overall percentage. Amazon and Apple results has huge difference example. We don't know streams of most of the platforms, and Taylor sold much more dijital dales there than Maroon 5. Their latest album is 3 platinum there example.

"Most artists go by streams and they can perfectly out-gross the ones selling their products." But even closest western act didn't gross %25 of Taylor's. If it was close or different case, ı could agree. But there is huge difference.

I didn't say Avril is one era wonder. I said she had bigger peak. But Taylor had bwttee consistency which is true. Taylor has bigger overall career in Asia.

Is Asia only includes China? He said China is one of the music markets does better but most of them does worse.

Music,

Exactly. Chinese market is not even nearly as big as Japan is today let alone 20 years ago. Sure Taylor is big in Asia. But she is big at a time when the market was ridiculously low and totally in contrast with Celine, Mariah. Cumulatively the asian markets are much smaller than it was 20 years ago during the time of Celine Dion and Mariah Carey. And its not just Asia. Even the US and Europe are not as big as it used to be. And Taylor was huge during the time of Downloads, a period where the market was brutally collapsing year after year. So it would be laughable to say that the market is in favor of Taylor Swift and unfair towards Celine Dion.

Hi Musiic!

The issue here is that you focus on statistics which are favorable to Taylor. For example, if we look at album sales and YouTube views only in the US, she would seem to be way, way bigger than Drake, but once we consider everything together the story is quite different. You say that Xiami is a small platform, the size of a platform isn't relevant to its representativeness. Check the most streamed artists / albums / songs there, they are indeed the hottest ones in China right now. Their audio streams are way more relevant than video streams of QQ precisely because they complete the jigsaw, rather than adding together only formats which belong to the same consumption process (like album sales and video views).

The example of the last Maroon 5 album is always brought over and over but it remains a very bad one. If you look at their 10 hottest videos on QQ, 0 come from Red Pill Blues, the top 3 (besides the new song Memories) are all V songs. If you look at QQ lists right now, Justin Bieber and Maroon 5 are both top 20 among the new songs list, in the top music videos ranking Alan Walker charts at 11, 12 and 14 with remixes of the same song while Ed Sheeran is #7 with South of the Border. In the popular index chart, Justin Bieber is at #2. Taylor Swift is nowhere to be seen in all these lists. Of course the point isn't to show she isn't doing well, just that we need to look at all metrics before drawing conclusions, not only the ones where her consumption is concentrated!

Taylor is doing well streaming wise lately. To think that just 2.5 years ago she was at 500M streams on Spotify to now garnering over 10B+ streams is really impressive. Maybe she's not as huge on streaming like Ed Sheeran, Post Malone, Drake, Shawn Mendes, Eminem, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande and Rihanna but she's doing good, to be honest.

You nee to see the global picture. In August 2018 Drake was announced with 50 Billion streams across all platforms worldwide. Now, in January 2020, Universal reports that Taylor’s discography was streamed 54 Billion times across all platforms worldwide. So that means Taylor reached the 50 Billion mark in 2019. All but 5 songs are non features. Quiet an impressive feat if you ask me.

Billboard ranked Swift as second only behind Drake this decade. Adele is at 5. Swift outsold her in the US.

Hello! IFPI has Taylor Swift as the biggest artist of 2019 infront Billie, Ed, Ariana, etc. I think this is proof they fully counted China and aren't weighing it down. Do you think you will eventually do the same because if we take CSPC? I'm sure the top 10 of 2019 would be very different and I personally consider IFPI the most reputable organization in the music industry. Chears!

Chartmasters differs between western world audio streams (1500=1 album unit) and Chinese audio streams (10750=1 album units). While the IFPI weights every audio stream the same, regardless of how much revenue they may generate. Chinese album sales (3$) are factored by 0,5. The IFPI weights them 1.

Out of curiosity. How exactly do you know how the IFPI weights audio streams? Did they report this?

What?

It doesn't matter how much revenue the sales generate, what does this have to do with music?

A sale is sale, Taylor is being heavily downplayed here.

A sale is a sale but the weights are different. You cant say a 1$ download sales equals to a 14$ album sales as much as you cant say a 3$ album sales equals to 14$ album sales. So no, not everything is the same. If a sale is really a sale. Than I guess Rihanna told record sales can make Taylor looks like good amateur. She sold close to 100 million more downloads than Taylor, outstream Taylor by a landslide too and Taylor only have a small 10 million album sales lead over her. But the team didnt take it as a SALE IS A SALE like u want it to be and Rihanna isnt really that super much more bigger than Taylor in reality. Thats why weightings are important and that is why Revenue is important too.

Rihanna outstreams Taylor by a landslide? Isn't Taylor ahead of Rihanna on YT, Apple Music, Amazon Music and catching up on Spotify?

Recently yes. Shes catching up. But over the past 6-7 years Rihanna has been outstreaming her a lot. I dont think shes ahead. Probably not even close. Just last year when she was updated. Her total EAS from streaming was 11 million while Rihanna was at 20 million. Im pretty sure Rihanna is probably at 23-24 million by now, while taylor even if she grows by 7-8 million. Shes still trailong by like 5 millions or so. Which is a lot. Rihanna also has not released any albums for 4 years. Imagine what will happen once she released an album.