Yeah, I'm manny I noh, and welcome to No such Thing, the show where we set all our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. This week we find out how popular Boring Barbie actually is.
There's no no such thing, no such thing such, thank such, thank touch, thank.
So.
We're talking about Taylor Swift mainly. How did she capture our collective attention so completely her new album It's sold two point seven million copies in one day.
Oh my god.
This is something we've talked about a while because you see big albums like this come out not only from her, about anyone else, and it'll be like, this song just broke this amazing record.
This is the most popular song ever of all time. And it never really makes sense.
It's always like something like, yeah, a lot of people listen to the Weekend Blinding Lights to me is not the most popular song.
Ever, right, even though it is.
Even though people listen to Yeah, people listen to him. I don't think it's like, no one listens to that guy. And we're curious, in the grand scheme of things, how popular is a Taylor Swift compared to someone from the past,
like the Beatles or Michael Jackson. But before we get into that, Okay, what everyone wants to know is what do we think about Taylor Swift US three mid thirties guys think so, you know, we'll get to that right in the interest, so people don't even need to listen to the rest of this.
So what are your experiences with her?
Well, let me start by saying, I genuinely have not listened to much of her music, like I do. Remember when I was in high school. You know, I'm on the bleachers. What's as a song you Belong with Me? You Belong with Me? And I thought that was really catchy at the time. Fast forward, however, many years, like I really haven't listened to much of it. I did listen to this one, and my initial reaction was that, you know, a lot of it sounded really well produced.
It's kind of pleasant to listen to in that way. I am not unique in my reaction to like the lyrics. I'll say, like, some of those were kind of like, kind of mind bogglingly bad, but not so much worse than like your average top forty pop fair.
I'm not as swifty by any stretching.
Imagine it's okay if you are, but I think I'm out right now. Amongst the three of us, I'm definitely the most in tune with.
You've at least heard. Yeah, you keep up on mainstream popular music.
Yeah yeah, I usually give all the new albums at least one listen through. You know, I dated a Swifty for a while, so like it was at a certain point my Apple Music would try to wreck you know, you know, auto play tailor car Yeah, and.
I had to tell it to stop doing that.
Swifty as in by Osmosis.
Yeah.
But my thoughts on this album, Okay, when we talk about Taylor Swift, I'm a reputation fan.
Okay, I listened to that one. That was I think the last album I listened to before this one.
My favorite Endgame the Future in Edge, Big d Bars.
The linkup was crazy incredible, So you know, I hope we get back to their.
This album compared to reputation.
Not no, no, no no, this doesn't hold up to reputation for me. Okay, Yeah, people are talking a lot about the lyrics. I don't have much room to talk. Some of my favorite artists have the most cringey lyrics.
I think she gets a little bit picked on I think because of the identity she's built around being a song That's what I.
Was going to say.
I think the fandom hurts her in this case because they they try to make sure she's built up to be so highly esteemed as a songwriter and a lyricist and all this, so that way when anything is not great, like we wouldn't be this critical of Sabrina Carpenter or someone, yeah, just because we don't think of her that way, because people don't put her on that pedestal.
Yeah, I'm not upset at me, espresso, Do I know what the fuck that means? That's fun, I mean whatever, But yes.
I do feel like too, Taylor's doing this thing where she's like talking about the Internet on this album, right, and I feel like once you get a certain level of a rich you're just like out of touch with the Internet in a way. But I do feel like there is a sort of like she's singing about stuff that feels like it's like.
Not ten years old, close to it, you know.
Yeah, well like yeah girl Battle Boston.
Yeah, so yeah.
I listened to the album and then I was surprised by the reaction being so negative.
It seems just because it to my ears.
And this is the thing where it's like, if you're really in this world, you're going to notice the differences versus like I pop into some pop albums, not tailors fifth albums. So it's like, to me, this doesn't sound so dramatically different. But if I was like ahead, yeah, I'd be able to be like, Okay, this is a clear you know, clearly worse than before or clearly different in this way. To me, it's not so dramatically different
than even like the really old stuff, yeah, sonically or lyrically. Yeah, So you're saying that the songwriting is is bad, but Whires, everyone's surprised. It's always kind of like this. I'm not even saying it's bad even, but it sounds not so dramatically different.
Yeah, it sounds about because I.
Listened to the album a few times now and it kind of grew on me certain parts, certain songs. I was like, Okay, there's actually at least a really good piece here.
Yeah. A lot of people were posting albums that other female artists did at age thirty five versus a show girl. Yeah, and it was like Beyonce Lemonade and the Joni Mitchell album I can't remember. Yeah, there's like so many examples of like kind of more mature, iconic mature music.
Yeah. Yeah, that was listening to Life of a show Girl.
There was parts where it was like, this sounds like music for babies, And I mean that kind of respectfully.
You got a private Tom, It's fun.
I actually think I like the album more than you guys, But some of some music, when I'm listening to the lyrics, I'm like, this just sounds like something for a little kid to dance singing to.
The sounds of it are just like, so.
Let's pop please in general, And to.
Be fair, it's like probably kind of the goal, like, yeah, it's a lot of.
A bad thing. Yes, it's not very Uh there's not much of an edge to it. Yeah, no, you know, by design.
Yeah. I think I see the harsh reaction in two different ways. One is there's got to be some kind of a fatigue. I think that's kind of what you were talking about, where like the album doesn't really sound that much different than the previous ones, and yet there's a backlash.
There's probably a little fatigue there.
She kind of has to drink problem where she Na always has to be making music always needs to be in spotlight. I was like, it'd be interesting if she just like dropped two songs, yeah, and not an album, But she doesn't really do that.
So let's move on to kind of our question that we're tackling. Do you guys think she is bigger than Michael Jackson?
What I would say is that Taylor Swift might be more famous in that more people know who she is today, but Michael Jackson. But Michael Jackson is a bigger.
Completed No, No, I think it's flipped.
I think I think she might well have technically sold more records, yes, but I think Michael Jackson is way more famous, especially if we're not talking about just America like worldwide.
You know what I mean, I forgot about you know who Michael Jackson is. You know it's and like there's symbols of him that you could show, like.
Kids are wearing Michael Jackson.
Taylor Swift by face, a lot of people would recognize her, but there's not like there's not like the red jacket, like yeah, there's nothing like that, you.
Know, of what do you what do you think though? Who do you think is more? You think Taylor Swift is well.
I would only say that in the sense that there might be a chance that more people know who she is, like today today, Michael Jackson's been dead for fifteen years at least, and so I don't even I'm not saying that more people know who she is. I'm just saying I could see a world where now in terms of like bigger, more, I don't.
Know the hedge. It's like impossible to guess.
So you don't, you don't, you don't feel strongly. I mean you think it could be a toss up.
If it depends on age, I guess if you're thirty, in up Michael Jackson.
But the question is just more general, like in the world, who's right now?
If you serve the internationally, Michael Jackson is a bigger, more known person.
And who do you think has sold more albums? However you want to quantify that, like who sold more music?
It's not fair, but Taylor Swift. It's not fair to Michael Jackson had to get on a you have to get on a bus to go buy his ship like today.
But that's what you think.
I think it's crazy to even.
Suggest that Taylor Swift is bigger than Michael Jackson. Yeah, I think Michael Jackson is, you know, besides Jesus, you know, like the most popular person of all time, you know, and it's beyond the music, right, It's like it's.
A thing Jesus phenomenon. Yeah, it's just.
Like everyone knows who Michael Jackson is in in terms of reach, right, Michael Jackson he was, you know, famous when he was like five. He was in the industry for a while. People who were very young knew who Michael jacksons. We are very old know who Michael Jackson is. People can name Michael Jackson songs. Taylor Swift feels a bit like, sure, maybe there's name recognition, but I think people know less about Taylor Swift outside of like she's
dating Travis Kelsey, Like people don't My mom isn't. No, she couldn't name a Taylor Swift song. She couldn't sing a Taylor Swift song. A lot of people who know Taylor Swift is could not name anything about her music. If you know who Michael Jackson is, you could probably name one Michael Jackson song.
Yeah.
To be fair to Taylor Swift, I don't think any artists ever will reach that's level.
Fault of stardom.
I think we're past that, We've passed the sort of like everyone is listening to the same thing. Yeah, everything is so much more fragmented nowadays that the closest we have to like everybody's watching or listening to this thing, Like what super Bowl halftime show?
Yeah, yep, it's like the one moment we have a yeah.
And even that feels like decreasing.
But yeah, where I come in on the kind of impact sort of thing, It's like Michael Jackson is popular across races, across ages, like you were saying, like across the world, like like my parents listen to Michael Jackson, your parents Like it's.
Versus like Taylor Swift.
It's like, you know, I have a very simple picture of who in my mind is the Tailor Shift listener.
Obviously it's broader than that. Clearly based on the numbers, it has to be. Yeah, But like a lot of people would not.
Be able to name the Tailor Shift songs in the way that many people of all types would be able to name Michael Jackson songs and talk about him, like you were saying, I am.
Curious about like young people today, we can probably no longer call ourselves young people, but people who are like kids to teens, what their relationship to Michael Jackson?
Yeah, my brother, well maybe because you know, up, my brother knows who Michael Jackson is though.
Yeah, and like you seventeen seventeen.
Yeah, like I'm seeing videos of like, you know, three year old canting to Michael Jackson.
Yeah, yeah, because you could picture if you know, we had kids, Yes, they might hear Michael Jackson.
Ye, because of us, and then they know who. That's all it takes.
Take Michael Jackson out of the equation, just like thriller. Right, It's like every Halloween thriller is going to be played everywhere. And even if you don't know that's a Michael Jackson thing, it's like, well you know that song, you know that video.
Someone brought this up to me too when I was talking to him about this conversation about like, do you think a woman could ever be as popular as any famous man in terms of musicians, And I was like, actually no, because I think because women listen to female musicians, and I think a lot of men will not listen. Yeah, women, by a lot of well, straight men will not listening to women musicians or you know, just because it's like that's a girl thing.
Yeah, I think that's true because even like the most praised like Beyonce album or whatever, Like whoever is the most acceptable female star for men to listen to? I don't think it would be Beyonce, but maybe yeah, you just don't see.
It reaching that height. Yeah at all.
So we're gonna take a break and when we come back, we'll talk to someone who wrote a book crunching the numbers when it comes to music data, and so hopefully you can answer some of these questions. But first let's hear from a few devoted Swifties about what the singer means to them.
So, I think Taylor Swift is so important to me and so special to me because of the way she's able to paint all the emotions of the world into song. You can feel the life just flowing through every single note, rhythm, melody. It's infectious.
I always said, you wrote the soundtrack to my life, just because I fell in love for music in like two thousand and six and it was like sixth grade. I think around them, and even if I haven't been through the things she's singing about, like she was singing about breakups, and I had never had a relationship that I'm like, oh my god, Like she gets my feelings for me.
What makes Taylor so special is her unhindered feminine voice, the fact that she as a woman, can express her feelings as a woman without having to be confined to.
As much patriarchy.
She still is complied to patriarchy, but the shackles of patriarchy are lighter than they have ever been.
I kind of say she's created a better church, one where there tends to be a higher bar in terms of we don't want misogynists here, we don't want homophobic people here. We love people who want to express themselves, whether that's painting their nails or dressing up to go to concerts.
I mean, I think people will also sometimes reduce her relatability to just like, oh, she's a basic white girl, so all the basic white girls see them at her. And I'm like, that's like a crazyly misogynistic things to say that, like, oh, all these women are just so basic, and that's like that's who supports her, and that's why she's so famous. It's like, no, she has a lots
of reasons for it. But she also has like massive fan bases in Asia South America, like so many countries and so like, she has managed to find a way to just kind of like tap into being relatable to everyone.
So we are back.
We're trying to figure out how Taylor Swift's success compares to past superstars and guess some answers were joined by Chris Stalareva. Chris Mind introducing herself.
Yeah, sure, my name is Chris Stallareva. I feel like I should say that again. I work in the music business. I work for a music streaming company called audio Mac, which is more like the SoundCloud universe. People could upload directly, and we're very popular in Africa and the Caribbean and I do the data analytics work there. But outside of my job, I do a lot of writing about music and data. I have a relatively popular newsletter and I have a book coming out called Uncharted Territory, which is
a data driven history of popular music. So I'm very much in the music data sphere.
So I guess let's kind of get straight into it. How popular is Tailor Swift?
And first let's focus maybe on simply like music sales, and if you want to bring in like concert tickets, but like kind of pure numbers based.
Yeah, what did you say, I mean, everyone's intuition here is correct. Taylor Swift is very, very popular by the RIAA, which is the organization in the US that certifies sales, so they hand out like the gold and platinum records. According to them, presently, Taylor Swift is the second best selling artist of all time behind Drake. When I looked at this a couple of years ago, number one was still the Beatles, which is, you know, decades upon decades
of album sales. So Taylor Swift is very popular right now, and I can't imagine a world, especially as Drake's star has fallen, where she does not overtake him at some point in terms of sales. It's worth pointing out, though, that it's sort of an apples to oranges comparison.
Yeah, so yeah, can you explain kind of how it's changed or how we measure these things.
Yeah, so Billboard, who does the charts, the RIAA, they're trying to figure out what the most popular records are, which is on the surface seems very easy. But this day and age, we can consume music in tons of different ways. Back in the day, it was really just sales. You went out, you purchase a record, that counts as
a sale. But even back then, there were some oddities where if you put out a double album, so an album with two discs, you know, the Wall by Pink Floyd or the White Album by the Beatles, one purchase of that counted as two sales.
Oh okay, I didn't know that.
So there was always there's always be fye. Yeah, there's always been weird chart behavior and weird things that artists could do to try to run themselves up the charts outside of just outright fraud, which was also you know, that's a music industry classic. But it's more complicated now because you still physical purchases which count the same. I buy a piece of vinyl by By a CD that counts as a sale. But there's also digital downloads and
there is also streams. So all of these bodies that try to calculate popularity, the two biggest in the US being the RIAA and Billboard, they equate digital downloads streams in sales in some formula, So the RIA says one hundred and fifty streams of a track equals one sale. Fifteen hundred streams of songs on an album equals one album sale. Now this seems arbitrary, and to a degree it is. I mean, someone just has to decide if you play a track one hundred and fifty times, that's
a sale. But I think even if you come up with some logic like, oh, the revenue from one hundred and fifty tracks is about equal to what someone would say been purchasing it. Okay, there's you could you could get to some logical explanation. But in the same sense, streaming is much more passive. It's like, I'm going to listen to every Drake record at least once, even if I would never go out and purchase.
A Drake, and it costs you basically nothing, just my time.
Yeah, my time is my only expense. And if you go back and look at like the ria's all time best selling artist two years ago, it was mostly still old timers, you know, the Beatles, Pink, Floyd, ACDC, Michael Jackson's of the World. If you look at it today, it's you still have a lot of those older acts, but the top of the list is really dominated by more recent acts who still do very well on streaming.
So I think streaming inflates these numbers to some degree just by the way the math works, but also because it's just it's more passive.
And thinking about it, like, Okay, if you buy a CD or an album, how many times do you listen to that?
Like, say you went out in about the fifty cent album?
Sure, how many times do you think, yeah, yeah, take us back there.
How many times do you think you listen to that album?
I mean over the I mean it takes years, I think to Like, that's a lot of to that, man, I mean it's a lot of listeners.
I'm almost arguing they should be lowering that number. Yeah, I agree, And you're kind of thinking about it the same way.
Help me understand this. Is it accurate to say that fifteen hundred different people listening to the same song once is equal to one person buying the physical album.
By the chart math, Yes, and it's not just The other oddity is you don't have to listen to the entire album if there's one really popular song. Oh and it's the same with digital downloads. They say ten track sales is equal to an album sale, but if you have ten people purchase whatever the single is, that counts as an album.
Sale, and then because there's playlists two like the Spotify playlist.
Yeah, it's getting extreamed when you didn't even seek it out.
People always say music listening is much more passive today, and I agree to in some sense that it is, but it's not like back in the day. Like back in the day passive. This thing which you would turn on the radio or whatever CD I have in my car is what's getting played.
Earlier, we were talking about another example I'd love to hear your thoughts on, which is this the weekend song Blinding Lights, the most popular song, apparently the most popular song in history. Now, I like that song, but why is there such a discrepancy between that stat and how like normal people feel about that song.
Yeah, I've also think about this a lot. The other one is I don't know if it's number one or it's now up. There is a bar song Tipsy by Shaozi Oh yeah, which is very popular. But they're those songs are They're very popular, they're well liked, But I think it's really a streaming phenomenon. We're streaming inflate stuff. Whereas before Blinding Lights took over as Billboard's most popular song of all time. Previously it was the Twist, and I'm like, the Twist is clearly like a cultural touchstone.
Even if you're are young, you've probably heard the Twist at least once or something like the macarena is like, whereas Blinding Lights doesn't feel like that to me. And I think part of that is there's like a cultural fracturing. But I think additionally it's just that we count things differently, Whereas before we were counting sales, and now we're counting consumption or listening. Like the equivalent would be how many times did you actually spin your copy of Hey Jude.
By the Beatles?
Ye?
I don't know, Yeah, I've done it a lot.
Why can't they just call it the most streamed song of all time? It makes me think of like when Watched the Throne came out, for example, and I had to get in my car drive to best buy Wait in the Line and then buy the album. That to me, it doesn't seem fair that that is valued the same as someone accidentally listening to a song today fift times or fifteen hundred different people you know accidentally listening to that song on a playlist or something.
This is the magic of Taylor Swift is that she can get people. They still go to Target and buy eight different versions.
Can So can you elaborate on that, Like how big of a factor do you think that is?
I think that's huge. So they just announced that this new album is gonna set the record for the most physical sales in a single an opening week for an album. It's going to best Adell's album twenty five. Now a Dell's album twenty five. There's like no bonus track editions, It's just the album. So you've got to assume most people who purchase that are just a single person buying
the album. Where I think there's been like thirty different versions of this Taylor Swift album created, and like each one has a different bonus track.
Of this album.
Yes, and there are different people who will go out and buy every single copy. So I wish there was a stat like how many unique people purchased the record because I mean, she has a super rabid fan base. I mean, you know you're talking concert tickets before the Eras tour is the most lucrative tour of all time. Even with all this weird chart math, still very very popular. I mean, there's no there's no two ways about that.
That's what makes it weird to me though, that she's doing the bonus stuff. It's just like, you don't need to do that, like you're Taylor Swift. You know this is like btier artists like maneuvers, And it was weird because you know, not to be this guy. But she did say before this album came out, I'm not doing
the bonus track thing. You're getting just whatever the twelve songs I'm putting out, or the twelve songs that are going to be on the album, you can say, Okay, they're not new songs, they're acoustic.
Versions or whatever.
So maybe that's her workaround, yeah, but she made it seem like she wasn't because she got a lot of blowback for the last album for doing all these different iterations, Like you're saying, Okay, I got to buy the album six times to just get the six different bonus tracks. Yeah, because each album only has one bonus track.
It's crazy, and all the different versions are not like on streaming right, like not to go half to actually buy it.
So everyone's always trying to game the system because if you popularity begets popularity, you have a number one record, you know, it's something to hang your hat on. More people are gonna listen even if you're not a Taylor Swift fan. And I tell you that it's the most purchased album and the first week ever. Yeah, interest, Yeah, you might go check it out. It's like, how the greatest marketing for Thriller ever is just it's the greatest selling album of all time.
Yeah.
So the main kind of question we're here is kind of comparing Taylor to especially Michael Jackson, but also like the Beatles and yeah, you know, so how how would you say her stats compared to like, you know, peak Beatlemania and then Michael Jackson.
First of all, it's like, obviously it's an unanswerable question because it is like Apple's to oranges comparison. But I pulled some stuff that I think can inform the debate a little. I feel like the only artists of the twentieth century or the twenty first century you could really compare Taylor Swift's popularity too, And I'm going back far are bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson,
and maybe Madonna. But I think those older artists, like the Frank Sinatras of the World very popular, but there wasn't the media ecosystem that we have now. I think the Beatles are the first example of an our artist be me Elvis two that you can truly compare because television was finally a thing. There was a very centralized media ecosystem you could interact with, not just the music the artists were putting out, but what they looked like
they were going to be on television. How long do you think Beatlemania will last?
As long as you all keep coming?
And Michael Jackson obviously takes that to a completely different level. And they also the Beatles are only together for like ten years, but when they were around, stadium touring was not a thing. Like they were the first artist to play an outdoor stadium, which was the former Say Stadium in Queens. So again it makes all comparisons hard, but I think with Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift you can sort of get an apples to apples comparison. And one way I was looking at this was comparing his to
his last completed tour to the Aras tour. And I'll give you a couple stats here that I think are interesting. The arastour sold ten million tickets across one hundred and forty nine shows, which is about sixty eight thousand per show, was in twenty five countries, but eighty five percent of the tour dates were either in the US, UK or Canada.
Michael Jackson's last completed world tour was his History World Tour in ninety six to ninety seven, sold four and a half million tickets across eighty two shows, which is an average of fifty five thousand per show, which is less, but only six dates, or seven percent of those dates were in the US, UK and Canada. In fact, only two shows are in the US and they were both in Hawaii, which I thought was crazy. None were in Canada. And he hits like a ton of countries that Taylor
Swift doesn't, like Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Roni or Russia. It's not to say that Taylor Shift couldn't play any of those places, but it As I was looking into this, it just struck me how global Michael Jackson's fame was. And there were some stats about when Taylor Swift took the Aris tour to Europe, like twenty percent of tickets in the Paris show were purchased by Americans. We're gonna fly out now, people who love done that. So I think Michael Jackson's fame is it's hard to quantify how
large it was. Another crazy fact, he was planning this this is It tour and he died and it was supposed to be ten nights at the two Arena in the UK, which holds twenty thousand people. Because of demand, they had to add forty more dates just for that arena. Yeah, so it was gonna be fifty nights at one arena in London.
Well that was the whole thing because they were saying that he wasn't in the condition to play that many shows, and they were like, but the money looks really good if we keep adding dates.
Forty is crazy total total of fifty.
This is it. I mean, this is really it.
This is the final curtain call. I'll see you in July.
I love you.
That nineties History World tour. Easy to imagine that if he added six to ten shows in the US like New York, LA, Chicago, that it would probably eclipse or at least match this the arastour.
You yeah, you would, you would think.
So.
I think Michael Jackson's global theme. I think I don't want to say Taylor Swift is a US phenomenon because she's not. I mean she could. She's one of the most famous people on Earth. I have I've had this debate often with people, but who the most recognizable person on Earth is outside of politicians and like the pope, And I feel like she's she's got to be up there.
But I think we're obviously all in the US. I think our fame is really magnified in the Western world, whereas Michael Jackson was super famous in the US and was constantly you know, in the tabloids for bad reasons, but his fame really went across borders in a way that I don't think we really see with other artists. So I think Michael Jackson is the only the only comparison point here. But otherwise, I mean, it's unprecedented.
When it comes to stream sales, album sales. I have kind of a like a bond Rip question to ask, which is like, when you comparison an artist today to someone in the eighties or seventies or sixties in the US alone, Let's say there's like, isn't it the case that there's like substantially more people.
Yes, today, I actually did have the same thought.
No, that I also was thinking about that. That is one hundred percent true. The population is much larger, Yeah, which.
Is like, that's funny.
I don't think people consider those very basic demographic questions when you think about stuff like this in terms of I guess, gross number of people. It's possible that even if Taylor Swift has less goal will reach, she's reaching more fans.
Yeah, I mentioned earlier. Yeah, interesting your piece that she wrote.
I think in twenty twenty three you talked about kind of her arc as an artist, in her longevity and kind of what's unusual about it, like kind of peaking later.
Pick your favorite artist. It's almost one hundred percent certain that their most important works were released before they were thirty. Popular music is a young person's game. It doesn't mean older people don't put out great stuff, but in terms of like the pop culture universe, it's it's a young person's game. And Taylor Stiff was obviously famous, very very young, but she her popularity I think is cresting. I mean, I can't imagine getting bigger than this, but who knows.
When she's in her mid thirties, which is rare. I mean, there are other superstars who maintain their popularity over time, like Elton John's a good example. He was super famous in the seventies, sort of fell off a bit in the eighties, and then in the nineties he became like a legacy act. But I think the thing that's special
about Taylor Swift. Are different about Taylor Swift is she has made her legacy material and like her new material sort of exists on the same plane where she still feels culturally vital for the new things that she's doing, while the old stuff also feels really vital. Actually, if you'll let me read this quote. This is from a critic named Stephen Hyde, and he's a great music writer for up Rocks and someone it was like an ask good the music critic column, and they said, will Taylorstoft's
popularity ever fade? And his observation here, I think really points out why her fame is so unique. This is the part of Taylor Swift's career that is unprecedented. She has rather brilliantly convinced the public that her past and present coexists right now. She's dismantled the former New work versus old work binary for artist and replaced it with the eras paradigm, where her songs are parceled into different
concurrent channels that are equal accessible. It's the same logic that streaming platforms have taught us, where all music history exists in the same bucket, and Taylor Swift has figured out how to reprogram the public's internal algorithm better than any of her competitors, so that her historical theme doesn't count against her contemporary fame. She gets to be a legacy act and irrelevant pop act simultaneously, which is why
I don't expect her fame to fade anytime soon. We saw this with the re release of her record.
Yeah yeah, I was just thinking, we haven't even talked about which, in some ways I think really helped her popularity, right because it felt like we kind of hit peak Taylor, and then the re release has happened and it's like, okay, no, we're still going up.
That's some people have pointed out that they think had COVID not happened, Taylor Swift would not have become as big as she did. Obviously, she was already big, but her popularity has sort of reached like a peak. And then during COVID no one could go to concerts. She puts out these two tomit acclaimed records, Folklore and Evermore that you know, reprove to people like she's a very seriously talented songwriter. And then you come out of COVID
and there was a huge demand for live events. She's gonna put on this career spanning tour, and I think that's a pretty good theory that she sort of benefited from all that pent up demand.
That quote sounds true even with kind of all the criticism of the new album's getting where people seem a lot of people seem disappointed with it, but like, I still don't really see the stuff of like oh I wish it sounded like Fearless or whatever, like whatever the early YEA classic stuff is, Like I don't see the same way with the Like we did an episode on Kanye recently and like that very early on he was getting like I want college drop out of like basically
by album three he was getting that, and like that's more common than not. Is like people always want the classic early thing and like, yeah, I've never really seen that with her, even as she shifted from country to pop and now to like whatever this new wave of her pop is like it's not as much this like rabid, like she fell off, you know, even if they are disappointed with this album, it's.
Like you don't you don't understand what she's doing.
Yeah, and it seems like, well, maybe next one she'll be back, you know, or whatever. You know. And then also in that sub sect post, you compared her to Michael Bolton as far as like the timeline.
Can you can you kind of run that back quickly?
Yeah, So I was looking for a couple people in this this piece about you know who who can we compare Taylor Swift The arc of Taylor Swift's career. Two Michael Bolton. If you were old enough, you'll recognize him from like commercials in the nineties where they were selling love song CDs and it was always how am I supposed to Live without you? He's singing these big ballads.
But Michael Bolton's career started in the late seventies as more of like a rock singer, and then he rebranded himself and he reached the crest of his popularity like fifteen years later in the nineties. Michael Botlan is in No way close to as popular as Taylor Swift even at his peak. Yeah, but like I what I was trying to get it was the arc of his career, like peaking later than your average person. Barbara Streisan's.
Yeah, that was the other main one. You comped her.
Two because and again this is just career arc where barbar streisand's very popular from early in her career. You know, she's like nineteen or twenty on Broadway putting out platinum records. But I think her best selling record of all times she didn't put out until nineteen eighty, which was I think called Guilty. It was a collaboration with Barry Gibb from the Beg's. So that's like, you know, twenty years
after your debut, you're releasing your most popular record. That's not common, and that's something Taylor Swift is doing currently. Most Like I said, most people, their most popular record is usually one of their first couple records, and you usually they're younger than thirty when it happens, not to make all us thirty year olds, damn.
So it's possible that her most popular song ever isn't out yet.
Taylor Swift, It's possible. I think over the long term, it's highly unlikely.
Because she's competing for herself now.
Yeah, even if her fans are rabid for new music. Like, if you're a very passive listener to Taylor Swift, the songs you probably know are like blank Space, Shake it Off, you Belong with Me.
That's the best one sounds to me, like like.
On like the White People list of just like you just know all the lyrics to this, like my Osmosis, like the Killers Born and.
Yeah, like I just know this, Yeah, Like those are two where are just like yeah, I just know everywhere to this. Yeah, we all fall on the in the group of people who think that, like it's kind of impossible to compare really, uh, Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson in terms of fame.
But if you have, I think Michael Jackson's bigger.
Well, you were with the kind of you were describing how it's like kind of apples and oranges based on the different environments of today, and.
And uh, yeah, if if you had, if I had gun your head into my head, Yeah, I'm still I'm still gonna go with Michael Jackson in this for the reasons we talked about it earlier, but I mean, Taylor Swift's up there. It's like you're talking about unimaginable amounts of fame.
Yeah, and I will say this to Taylor's credit.
I think the the odds are stacked against her in a lot of ways because of the you know, how culture is so fractured nowadays. Yeah, like I think, you know, maybe if you know she was growing up in at the same time period as Michael Jackson, maybe she would be bigger.
All right, well, thanks, Chris, if you want to plug your book one more time.
Oh yeah, well, Uncharted territory with numbers tell us about the biggest hits, songs and ourselves. It's about how I listened to every number one hit in history, and I wrote a data driven history of popular music using that crazy listening journey.
All right, so we are back.
So Chris just helpefully explained, you know, kind of how music is even measured these days. And I think, you know, as best as we could expect, answered our question as far as how Taylor compares to Michael Jackson and others.
What do you guys think? Are you satisfied? I think so.
I mean we I think all three of us kind of agreed that Michael Jackson is a bigger, more famous person. I definitely had a little bit of like, well, I wouldn't be surprised to learn something new here. When he was talking about how Michael Jackson's tour like demographics were just so much more diverse than that.
That was a big thing to me that that confirmed kind of what my intuition was was just like the internetal effects. Yeah, when he's playing out the tour dates and it's like he's barely even coming, he's not even playing in the continental United.
States, doesn't need to Like that's a different level.
And like, obviously, yeah, anytime he could, he could just be like I'm going to play Madison Square Garden for three years, you know what I mean, Like.
He could have done that at any point.
Something that came to mind for me that you remember, there used to be a debate and I think this is pretty much settled now. At one point, and I would say I was on the other side of this debate at the time, was like who is bigger, Beyonce or Taylor Swift. I think it's to say now that Taylor Swift is bigger. I think some of that is like Beyonce, I think intentionally like, yeah, it's making music and has decided artistically to like move in a direction that isn't as broad.
Not focused on just getting the pop.
And that's contributed to it.
But at one point I would fight you on like obviously Beyonce is, even if her music doesn't sell as much, is more famous.
Yea, and more of a cultural figure. Yes, at that Yeah, I think probably before I say, pre aerostour.
Yeah, I was gonna yeah, I was gonna say basically up to maybe the maybe you could go a little earlier than but like, yeah, once we passed like the nineteen eighty nine era, like the once we entered the true pop star thing, that's when it's like, okay, now it's like a contest.
I remember my take from that debate being kind of the inverse of this one, where I thought Taylor Swift was probably more popular but that there was no contest in terms of cultural influence or like impact.
Yeah, well it's it's basically the single Lady's Video is so much more iconic than anything that Taylor Swift which is put.
Out, which of what connye Was point was, I mean, it's like.
Disagree with his methods, but he was He's right, like, you can see one frame of that blur out the faces and you know what it is. I don't think any tailorshift video really has that, even though I could kind of describe some of them, but.
Well, has any video impact of single Ladies and single Lady.
Top five Swift songs?
I don't, which would genuinely I don't know if I can name five of them. That's why I'm like such a bad right now, Okay, you got you Belong to Me, which is a banger from my high school days. Is reputation a song or just an album.
Counter It's called Endgame, but the song is it's funny because a reputation, but it's called Dames.
Okay, okay, and what about does this album count?
Probably?
Okay, this sounds all right, then I could probably do it. Uh, We're actually romantic, which is the Charlie XCX disc Redwood, which is about Travis Kelsey's deck.
It's not damn, man, just damn. I can't even folklore evermore.
All right, we're gonna go out one song from Life of a Showgirl. What song are we gonna play?
I like open Light?
Okay? Or yeah?
I think that's the one.
I like, Let's do Let's do twenty seconds ol.
Hell's Hell's, Hell's, Hell's Hells.
No such Thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our executive producers are Kid Osborne and Mangeshkidur. The show is created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph. Theme and credits song by Manny Fidel. Mixing is by Steve Bone. Our guest this week is Chris Dalaiva. Find the link to his newsletter and his upcoming book in the show notes below. Thank you, Chris, and special thanks to Irene
Kim and her swifty friends. Visit No Such Thing dot show to subscribe to our newsletter for more about this episode, and if you have feedback for us or a question, our email is Manny Noah Devin at gmail dot com. You can also leave us a voicemail by calling the number in our show notes. And if you've made it this far and don't hate us, please leave a five star review and write something nice about us.
Wherever you're listening to this, it really helps a lot. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks for listening.
Hells Hell's not such a thing.