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Hi Gorge!
You say that her music was taken off Spotify during her peak, but Apple Music wasn't even existing during 1989's big months. The platform started in 6/30/2015 and she also blocked her albums there at some point.
By the end of 2015, their number of users was still 20 times lower than the current count of Spotify users, on that context 500 million streams equals to 10 billion current Spotify streams. It's always key to keep market statistics in mind before doing assumptions! Extrapolation ratios are never perfect but that's the best we have to avoid biased data. Plus considering Apple Music public is more urban oriented than Spotify public someone like Drake would be more penalized if we start going that way!
What you're suggesting is mathematically impossible. According to your formula, for every stream on Spotify, an artist receives around 1.6 streams on other comprehensive audio streaming devices. Following your formula, since Taylor received 0 streams on Spotify from later 2014 to mid-2016, she also received no streams on Apple Music. It does not add up. We're now almost 4 years after the released of 1989 and the album is still easily charting within the top 100 daily albums. How am I supposed to belive an album like Unapolegetic from Rihanna has more than 3 times more streams than 1989 on Apple Music despite being bigger on every metric and being way more promoted with a better chart run?
Hi again Gorge!
As I said, no formula is perfect. The point is to not enter into biased / manually manipulated data that would be way more flawed still than fixed formulas used for all.
Your example precisely show that it is all the more hazardous to get into home made figures. You fail to mention the market once again and you suggest 1989 got zillions of streams on Apple Music while the platform wasn't even existing back then. If you say that 1989 should be higher because it was taken off from Spotify (while it was basically taken off from every relevant streaming service at the same time), then why don't you argue than her older albums should be lower? They got streams on a time that had Spotify dominating much more the industry, so the ratio for their year would be lower.
The whole point / validity of the formula is because of the continuous and fast growth of streams. Basically, streams that happened in 2014 are irrelevant already. Even big hits from that era got way, way more streams since then that back in the day. That's why the current ratio (1,6) is used for songs of every year, because it is the ratio that is valid now, meaning now that the market is so much bigger. By the end of 2014, a song like Coldplay's The Scientist was still under 80 million streams, by now it stands on 540 million. Back in 2014, barely 1 million daily streams was enough to be #1 worldwide on Spotify and as previously mentioned and there was no Apple Music. 1989 was unavailable from streaming platforms to fuel its pure sales, you can't expect that people now uses manually adjusted formulas in order to inflate its streams and retrieve what they could have been!
Hi! I was just curious: at what do you estimate 1989's Asian sales? You say N/A, but then you say 2.7M overall so how many did you count from 1989? Have a good day
Hi Albus!
1989 was on 445,000 units in Asia (minus Japan) as of the date of the article! 🙂
Looking at your statistics from different artists your formula shows that 1989 (which we both know to be one of the most successful album of the decade) has less comprehensive audio streams than objectively far less successful albums. Your formula can't be applied to Taylor, you're basically saying she received no comprehensive audio streams what so ever for almost 2 years since she wasn't on Spotify. You're saying 2014 streams were insignificant, but I can hardly see how it's insignificant when you even have albums like 'Demi' by Demi Lovato - an album released in 2013 that barely made year-end charts that doesn't even represent a fifth of 1989's CSPC - with 2 times more comprehensive audio streams than 1989, the most streamed female album of all time on YouTube and the second biggest female album of the last 6 years after 25. You don't see the problem here?
Hi Foxie!
You posted the exact same message about a month ago under another account and I already told you that 1) 1989 was also unavailable on remaining streaming platforms 2) the market was terrible back then in comparison to today. You mention Demi, her streams have been mostly achieved after 2014, as for every track. Even monster hits from that time like Happy got more streams since 2015 to date than during their initial run. I already pointed out a few days ago that a track like Bohemian Rhapsody, who's popularity has been big since day 1 of Spotify, reached 50 million in late 2014 only - and added over 450 million since. So yes, streams back then were insignificant at the time and expecting an album to be among the most streamed albums ever up to now thanks to streams from these years is delusional.
I'm not suggesting it's the most streamed album of all time with comprehensive audio streams at all. I'm saying you're clearly undermining its comprehensive audio streams. What is delusional is saying the album received 0 audio streams from its release up until June 2017 like your formula suggests. 1989 was put on Apple Music in 2015 and her entire discography sans 1989 was available on Google Play for streaming during the same time period. How do not see that your formula is inapplicable for Taylor is beyond me.
Foxie,
It's because one more time you focus on the period that interests you rather than looking at the whole picture. Why don't you mention that from 2010 to November 2014 she achieved streams almost exclusively in Spotify which was far and away the strongest platform (Apple Music wasn't existing back then) and that these streams are weighted with current (obviously too high) standards? In the same way, she got heavy streams on Spotify in June / July 2017 after the long removal, that surge was much more relevant than Apple streams in 2015 since its number of users is over 10 times bigger than Apple Music back then. At the end of the day you have multiple years for which the formula was strongly favorable to Taylor up to the end of 2014, then a blank half year in 2015, then 2 years with unfavorable results, then 1 year with favorable results in 2017, and now it's all 'sorted'. What's beyond me is how you can focus on lost streams from mid-2015 to mid-2017 on a low-sized platform (Apple Music averaged 15m subscribers from 06/15 to 06/17) and 'forget' that on a 150m users platform it got a massive boost lately and that for several years it got streams on Spotify while not on Apple Music. It's the whole meaning of an average, to settle a number that averages every period. Pointing out the lone period where an artist did better than suggested by the average and say "hey, you must inflate the figure to make that up!" makes no sense.
i like the new layout of the articles. Flows much more naturally.
Btw, do you guys update the figures in the Data Collector area after every updated article? Like if you do update all of Taylor's numbers or Drake's streaming numbers, do the respective tables in data collector get updated as well? I wouldn't mind helping with that in case help is needed 🙂
Awesome update, I noticed you removed the section on the streaming charts that included total audio streams, do you still factor in Apple Music and other streaming services?
Hi Pat!
Yes it is updated after every article (we are updating it tonight with new Taylor's results). Anthony does it with automated processes that he prepared so it requires no manual changes luckily for us! 🙂
Hi Tommy!
Yes of course, they are still accounting for. The column was kinda redundant since it was an application of the ratio mentioned in the introduction, so we decided to remove it to make tables easier to digest. The formula is printed already and EAS results use it!
Hi Emiliano!
Well, actually they went up from 149 million to 153 million 🙂
There is two things that have been removed: non-pure sales of 1989 in Mexico since their certs include YouTube views and pre-release downloads of promotional singles that got dropped in anticipation of the Complete My Album functionality on iTunes. Now download figures fall perfectly in line with the last Billboard update for her career total!
