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All Hail Taylor Swift, Person of the Year!

lobosrul5 said:
I almost already replied... in the USA, she's the biggest solo artist since Michael Jackson. Weather she has topped his popularity, I'm not sure, or what metric to measure them by. There might be a group or two as well... NSYNC were ******* everywhere circa 1998-2002.
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Might be difficult to compare but I’m pretty sure Michael Jackson has sold more albums than Swift. Of course, comparing sales of vinyl with sales of downloads, especially with a larger market, would seem to favour Swift but even then I think Jackson is out in front.

Michael Jackson has touched many generations in ways that Swift hopefully won’t. Allegedly.
 
theprestige said:
Biggest in what sense?
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I'm trying to put a metric on it... not sure which works. Most money made touring (adjusted for inflation)... album sales (well a lot of people don't buy albums anymore)... most #1 singles?.... biggest cultural icon (how the hell do you quantify that?).

Anyways, its is IMO, safe to call her at least the biggest solo artist in the USA since the height of MJ.

To answer two of my questions: MJ has outsold TS by a factor of almost 5 to 1 in album sales (a bit unfair since that counts posthumous but still). TS has had 10 #1 singles, MJ had 13 #1's (does not count The Jackson 5).
 
lobosrul5 said:
I'm trying to put a metric on it... not sure which works. Most money made touring (adjusted for inflation)... album sales (well a lot of people don't buy albums anymore)... most #1 singles?.... biggest cultural icon (how the hell do you quantify that?).

Anyways, its is IMO, safe to call her at least the biggest solo artist in the USA since the height of MJ.

To answer two of my questions: MJ has outsold TS by a factor of almost 5 to 1 in album sales (a bit unfair since that counts posthumous but still). TS has had 10 #1 singles, MJ had 13 #1's (does not count The Jackson 5).
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Although a large amount of MJs #1s were off 1 album. But he had 7 albums in the top 10, with 5 at number 1. Not counting re-releases, Swift has 10 albums in the top 10, with 8 #1s


And Swift is still going. Expect her next album to hit #1 the first day.

As noted, the metric for "more popular" is hard to come by, but it's clear Swift is right there with MJ or above. And that's just in terms of people listening to songs she sings. I think another aspect that adds to her popularity measure is that she writes her songs. That's something that makes her more Beatles-like and less so Elvis or Michael.

Then again, Swift as only been in the business 20 years, and there is no reason to believe she won't continue to succeed for a long time.

Whether she is going to have the historic legacy of the Beatles is likely doubtful, merely because they were more transformative. But her legacy will still be huge.
 
pgwenthold said:
... As noted, the metric for "more popular" is hard to come by, but it's clear Swift is right there with MJ or above. And that's just in terms of people listening to songs she sings. I think another aspect that adds to her popularity measure is that she writes her songs. That's something that makes her more Beatles-like and less so Elvis or Michael.
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MJ wrote many (most?) of his songs.

As a songwriter, he [MJ] penned more than 150 songs, with more than 20 reaching multi-million performance status on American radio and television.
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Link​
 
bruto said:
It seems a little unfair to compare TS to Jackson considering that they're in very different parts of their careers. She's likely to have some time to catch up.
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It sounds like she's already just about caught up, and if her career lasts as long as his did, she might even lap him at some point.
 
Remember that Taylor's first album was released in 2006. She's almost twenty years into her career now. Michael Jackson's solo recording career was almost over in twenty years.
 
pgwenthold said:
Although a large amount of MJs #1s were off 1 album. But he had 7 albums in the top 10, with 5 at number 1. Not counting re-releases, Swift has 10 albums in the top 10, with 8 #1s


And Swift is still going. Expect her next album to hit #1 the first day.

As noted, the metric for "more popular" is hard to come by, but it's clear Swift is right there with MJ or above. And that's just in terms of people listening to songs she sings. I think another aspect that adds to her popularity measure is that she writes her songs. That's something that makes her more Beatles-like and less so Elvis or Michael.
Then again, Swift as only been in the business 20 years, and there is no reason to believe she won't continue to succeed for a long time.

Whether she is going to have the historic legacy of the Beatles is likely doubtful, merely because they were more transformative. But her legacy will still be huge.
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Wait, what?

I had to have a quick look at this claim.

It seems that Michael Jackson wrote a lot of his own songs. He is given sole songwriting credit for Beat It, Billie Jean, most of the Bad album, and some of the Dangerous album.

Taylor Swift is credited, according to Wikipedia, as writing or co-writing all of her discography except some cover versions. Well, okay, but it looks like the co-writers did quite a lot of writing.

So I would call that a draw between the two. Elvis, on the other hand, definitely pales in comparison to both on the song-writing front.
 
I have to say it has been bloody hilarious watching the right absolutely losing their collective minds and descending into full meltdown over Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

Seriously, a conspiracy to fix the result of next week's Superbowl so that something, something Taylor Swift, something,something Biden endorsement? Really? There are people stupid enough to fall for this sort of crap?


Oh wait... I forgot! We're talking about the rubes in The Fat Orange Turd's base aren't we!? Carry on then!
 
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