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Hi all!
All 3 artists are now most likely over 100m. It requires a lot of work update them together, and it's near impossible to claim one or another made it first considering how close they are. What's safe to say though is that Taylor is now clearly emerging as the strongest seller from her generation, she has a shot to join the all-time big 5 much faster than we would have though.
Hi MJD. Do u think there is a possibility that Rihanna could get back in the lead against Taylor? Or is the odd seems to high.
No, definitely not but she had a strange career due to her beginnings as a country pop singer, a genre that is very difficult to sell outside of North America. It wasn't until "Red" that she started to gain mainstream recognition in Europe, and "I knew you were trouble" is probably her first true hit in Europe. This was likely due to the fact that with the "Red" era she started abandoning her country roots and moving towards a more pop-dance sound, a genre much more marketable in Europe. Even after her final breakthrough though Taylor's popularity in Europe is no way near as big as in the anglosphere. Taylor is not a local artist but certainly there is a very big gap in her popularity between Europe and North America. I think she is in a similar situation of Mariah Carey in the 90's. Carey was the queen of US charts back in the 90's but, whiel certainly she had some success in Europe, it was never comparable to the success she was having in the USA. So not a local artist at all, but certainly her success is heavily North America-centric.
I would think that Mariah, especially Around Music Box, was bigger in Europe than Taylor, but Swift has more endurance
Yes, Mariah is probably much more known in Europe than Taylor, certainly. Taylor never had a high peak like Music Box in Europe plus Mariah has the perennial Christmas hit that made her an household name in Europe, while Taylor never had a hit as big as "All I want for Christmas" or an album as big as "Music Box" in Europe. I made the Mariah comparison because they share some similarity in the popularity gap between North America and Europe but yes, Mariah in the 90's was bigger than Taylor is right now in Europe. They are similar because they both started big in USA but didn't achieve a loto of success in Europe until a few years later and even when they finally breakthrough in Europe they were never as big there as in North America unlike several of their peers. But yes Mariah has a huge era in Europe (Music Box) and a perennial hit that basically everyone knows (All I want for Christmas) while I honestly doubt that many in Europe know even a song of Taylor Swift.
I think that she might even surpass Britney Spears with the following re-releases of her early albums
If she keeps on selling like that, next year she will probably surpass George Michael next year
Also, everyone knows Without You in Europe. It was her breakthrough hit In Europe, not that Christmas song. That became big only after 2000.
hi MJD, can you please tell me the Physical Album Sales of Taylor's Albums in China? I know 1989 is somewhere above 100,000 copies but what about the other ones?
Without you was her european breakthrough but honestly has been pretty forgotten by the european general public, like most of Carey's hits. I like Mariah, but in Europe the only time of the year you hear a song from her back catalogue is december. Yes she had hits in Europe, even big ones like "Without you", but unlike in the USA the audience quickly forgot about them. If you try and ask random people on the streets if they know a Mariah's song 90% will answer "All I want for Christmas" and most won't even remember "Without you" even if it was huge back in 1994
It's the same in the US, most of her sons are not well remembered. Few people know One Sweet Day despite spending 16 weeks at number 1.
She really just has that Christmas song, Hero, and maybe Always be my baby.
Yes, I'm from the UK and the only tracks I can recall being aware of, when they were contemporary, were her debut Vision of Love, Without You and that bloody Xmas song!
She just didn't connect with the UK public/mainstream the way say Houston or Madonna did but then again, none of that 90s US R&B styled music, that ruled the US charts connected that deeply with the UK public.
I will say Whitney has always been very big in the UK. Mariah and Celine whilst their names are well known never were truly big and Janet Jackson is still sadly known more for being a Jackson than her own music. Obviously Madonna is Madonna, but I’m pretty sure the main female artists (that i was aware of) were the likes of Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Kylie Minogue and weirdly Gloria Estefan.
Really? Considering she has a lot of songs from her back catalogue over 100 mln plays on Spotify (We belong toghether, Without you, Hero, Fantasy, Always be my baby) I thought that her catalogue was better known in the USA and received better airplay from USA radios than in Europe. Maybe she has a very solid fanbase that keeps streaming her back catalogue
