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Tom, I'm not disputing how successful she is at moment or has been for a while now. I also appreciate how outstandingly well she is doing physically, compared to everyone else and given how low physical sales are now but as said, I was never questioning her success, more that despite this huge success, she still flies under the radar for a lot of people and certainly a lot of older people, who are not that interested in her or her music.
I forgot older people don't consume music. Thank you for this enlightening take.
No worries Tommy boy, always a pleasure to help you youngsters out and set you straight. Although, I have to question your reading ability and comprehension of English, as I can't find the bit where I said that older people do not consume music.
It's just common sense Martin. She dominates streaming and it's older people don't stream, she dominates pure sales and it's 'she flies under the radar of older demographics'. If she dominates every metric how does her music not penetrate to older generations of people, surely old people DO consume music. For someone who puts so much time and effort into understanding music consumption you come across extremely out of touch with consumption in your home country.
And again Tommy boy, I didn't say that, it's you that's inferring that and twisting what I did actually say. I guess you do struggle with comprehension.
Again with the personal attacks from an editor on this website.
Your lack of professionalism is shocking to me. All you've done is try and reduce and diminish other perspectives in a way that resembles a playground bully.
Really shocking stuff from chartmasters.
Well, it does become rather boring when I'm making one point and you seem to be arguing with me, about another.
Going back to the YouGov rankings and analysis, here are the UK's popularity rankings for older people!
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/entertainment/popularity/all-time-music-artists/all
BABY BOOMERS (1946-1964) (59-77)
1st: Queen (92%)
2nd: ABBA (90%)
3rd: The Beatles (88%)
534th: Taylor Swift (37%)
GENERATION X (1965-1980) (43-58)
1st: Freddie Mercury (89%)
2nd: Queen (84%)
3rd: ABBA (80%)
180th: Taylor Swift (55%)
MILLENNIALS (1981-1996) (27-42)
1st: Freddie Mercury (77%)
2nd: Queen (75%)
3rd: Lady Gaga (75%)
12th: Taylor Swift (68%)
Thank god we are choosing to use surveys and not actual physical real sales numbers, I nearly forgot chartmasters and the CSPC methodology was entirely survey based.
This entire argument is especially moronic because there is literally no way to compare Madonna's surveyed popularity across generations at the time vs. Taylor's now. For all you know Madonna could have been completely unknown to traditionalists/silent gen and pre traditionalists.
So if you're so keen on surveys as a means to measure popularity why do you even contribute to this website if it's clearly a methodology you don't believe in?
Well, it wasn't an argument at all, until you showed up and interjected and turned it into one. It was a pleasant conversation between Nick and myself about a few different things.
I posted the above because it gives an insight into how different age demographics feel about Taylor, something we do not get from her streaming or physical numbers and helps to show how popular she is amongst older generations, which in case you've forgotten, is relevant to one of the points I was making, about her flying under the radar for a lot of people from older generations.
The fact that she is not even in the Top 10 for Millennials, who would have been at oldest 25 and at youngest 10, when she arrived on the scene, would intimate to me that it is Gen Z/Gen Alpha that are mostly behind her outstanding success and that it is not unfathomable that her music could be largely unknown to a large percentage of older generations, despite this outstanding success.
Who knew that old people prefer old music to recent music...
In the previous discussion your argument was that you're "well aware of many songs" by her contemporaries like Rihanna and Katy Perry but you only know one Taylor song, so let's look at their popularity with those gens:
Boomers
Taylor 37%
Rihanna 39%
Katy 44%
Gen X
Taylor 55%
Rihanna 45%
Katy 52%
Millennials
Taylor 68%
Rihanna 70%
Katy 52%
Interesting that Taylor is more popular overall, it's almost as if your personal experience and feeling isn't representative at all of reality, could this be possible?
My point wasn't how popular she is against other contemporary artists but how popular she is within those age categories overall. You seem another who is arguing a point I am not making here.
Also, you are measuring artists here, I was talking about songs, so yet again you are twisting things and not making the point I was.
But with regards to your point, I also mentioned songs by Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga and Adele;
Boomers
Sheeran 63%
Adele 60%
Lady Gaga 51%
Taylor 37%
Gen X
Sheeran 67‰
Lady Gaga 59%
Taylor 55%
Adele 48%
Millennials
Lady Gaga 75%
Sheeran 70%
Taylor 68%
Adele 62%
Incidentally, Madonna's popularity with Boomers is at 43% so maybe she wasn't as popular as you remember at the time?
And again, making a point I didn't, as I didn't say anything about her popularity in the 80s. I said her hits seemed to sink through to a deeper and wider demographic, but ultimately there is no way of measuring that today.
"My point wasn’t how popular she is against other contemporary artists but how popular she is within those age categories overall."
I literally just quoted you:
"I’m well aware of many songs by the likes of Sheeran, Adele, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry etc but somehow Taylor tracks have never really registered with me."
Isn't this your whole argument?
As for this:
"you are measuring artists here, I was talking about songs"
Please... You're the one who brought up these popularity polls to demonstrate your point that Taylor's music is unknown by older people or something, and now you're dismissing them?
You keep saying people aren't arguing with your points but if your points are that incoherent it is indeed difficult to argue with them.
So you're talking about "how popular Taylor is within those age categories overall" but not how popular Madonna was? I'm honestly confused...
How the hell are they incoherent? My point in this discussion is not about her popularity amongst contemporaries, is about how despite her insane success, her music still flies under the radar of some people, especially older people, like myself.
It makes no difference if she is more popular in those age groups than some of her contemporaries, it's about the fact that she is not popular with 45% of say, my generation (X). This infers to me that a lot of people in my age group probably do not know much about her music and that it could quite easily have passed them by completely, despite her insane success!
Yes, you honestly are. It's two separate points.
Point 1. Despite her insane success, her music has completely passed a lot of older people by. Based on me originally saying, her music has completely passed me by.
Point 2. Madonnas hits seemed to be more well known to a deeper and wider demographic than Taylors do now. (Which is my hypothesis, based on witnessing both careers)
Point 1: I am using Yougov popularity polls, to show that she is not popular or liked by large percentages of older age groups, BBs 63% and Gen X 45%. So I am making the presumption, that given such large percentages, a lot of people in these age groups could easily have taken no interest in her music or career.
Point 2: As said, my hypothesis, based on being around in 80s and my assumption that her music, controversies, lifestyle etc seemed to penetrate through to a wider demographic, due to people of all age groups essentially viewing the same mainstream TV stations and TV programmes, reading the same mainstream Newspapers and listening to the same mainstream Radio Stations, due to the limited nature of them all.
Whereas today, people of differing age groups do not all watch, listen and read the same stations, channels, programmes or newspapers, so differing age groups are not digesting the same media and information anymore. You have to seek out information now, it's not just drip fed to you on mainstream TV as it was in the 80s. I could watch BBC news or read BBC news website every day, all week long and hear or see nothing about Taylor, to hear about her I'd probably have to be a follower on Twitter or whatever or read specific websites or watch specific channels. So in my opinion, it's far easier for something to completely pass you by today, if you are not tuning in to or following something specifically.
Yesterday BBC published an article about the big winners of the VMAs, obviously was Taylor centric.
On August 23rd BBC published an 18 minute podcast titled 'Swiftnomics'
On August 3rd BBC published an article about the second NA leg being announced
On July 29th BBC published an article 'Taylor Swift Seattle Concert Generates Seismic Activity'
On July 26th BBC published an article addressing the trend of dressing up for concerts, again very Taylor-centric
On July 22nd BBC used Taylor as an example to explore why concerts dont go to Northern Ireland
Between July 10-19 6 different ticket sales articles were published.
The majority of those pieces do not appear on the main BBC 1 TV news or on the main/lead online BBC news page, although I did see an article about her UK tour, last month, in the entertainment section. You have to delve into the culture, entertainment, music, regional (Northern Ireland etc) or quite often the CBBC (children's section) sections on the website to see articles on her or search for them, as you have done. If you are just wanting to watch the main BBC TV news or read the main BBC news page, which I do almost everyday, she seldom turns up. So as I said, unless you are specifically looking for articles or news on her, you have to go to specific sections or sites, because they don't often turn up on the mainstream TV news or the main online news page.
First week CD sales in the US
Midnights 395,000
1989 TV 315,000-320,000 (no signed copies, preorders alone)
Duh? Taylor doesn't penetrate BBC's main headlines but why would she? Why is this some expectation you hold of her to gauge her popularity?
BBC isn't a pop culture website. Focused website, the fact any artist is impactful enough at all to break into it's usual economy/politics/sports/tech focus is impressive. I mean according to your opinion polls you religiously cite Lady Gaga is more popular in the UK, but in the past nearly 4 years Gaga has received less article coverage than Taylor in August and July of this year.
Her songs flop in Europe where most charts are. Look at Cruel Summer, Karma, Levander Haze.
@Martin is right in that Madonnas hits penetrated much larger demographic
Taylor's music is well known among younger people, but not middle aged people. I can also say based on her singles performance she is not universally known in Europe either like Madonna is.
Are you and Analord some kind of piss taking tag team, who deliberately misconstrue and misinterpret everything I say or do you genuinely, just not get stuff?
I'm not suggesting she should or using it as barometer of her popularity, duh! It's because it relates to and reinforces my earlier point;
"L could watch BBC news or read BBC news website every day, all week long and hear or see nothing about Taylor, to hear about her I’d probably have to be a follower on Twitter or whatever or read specific websites or watch specific channels. So in my opinion, it’s far easier for something to completely pass you by today, if you are not tuning in to or following something specifically"
With regards to the YouGov polls, it's Analord that religiously cites them, I've just used them here, because they offer an insight into age demographics, exactly what we are talking about here. It makes sense to me, that Lady Gaga is more popular and more highly thought of amongst older people than Taylor Swift, as I'd imagine her and her music appeal more to older people than Taylor Swifts does, who it seems, based on evidence, appeals more to children and younger people.
