Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm manny I noh, and welcome to No such Thing,
Speaker 1: the show where we set all our dumb arguments and
Speaker 1: yours by actually doing the research. This week we find
Speaker 1: out how popular Boring Barbie actually is.
Speaker 2: There's no no such thing, no such thing such, thank such,
Speaker 2: thank touch, thank.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Taylor Swift mainly. How did she capture
Speaker 1: our collective attention so completely her new album It's sold
Speaker 1: two point seven million copies in one day.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: This is something we've talked about a while because you
Speaker 1: see big albums like this come out not only from her,
Speaker 1: about anyone else, and it'll be like, this song just
Speaker 1: broke this amazing record.
Speaker 5: This is the most popular song ever of all time.
Speaker 5: And it never really makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's always like something like, yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 1: listen to the Weekend Blinding Lights to me is not
Speaker 1: the most popular song.
Speaker 5: Ever, right, even though it is.
Speaker 1: Even though people listen to Yeah, people listen to him.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's like, no one listens to that guy.
Speaker 1: And we're curious, in the grand scheme of things, how
Speaker 1: popular is a Taylor Swift compared to someone from the past,
Speaker 1: like the Beatles or Michael Jackson. But before we get
Speaker 1: into that, Okay, what everyone wants to know is what
Speaker 1: do we think about Taylor Swift US three mid thirties
Speaker 1: guys think so, you know, we'll get to that right
Speaker 1: in the interest, so people don't even need to listen
Speaker 1: to the rest of this.
Speaker 5: So what are your experiences with her?
Speaker 6: Well, let me start by saying, I genuinely have not
Speaker 6: listened to much of her music, like I do. Remember
Speaker 6: when I was in high school. You know, I'm on
Speaker 6: the bleachers. What's as a song you Belong with Me?
Speaker 6: You Belong with Me? And I thought that was really
Speaker 6: catchy at the time. Fast forward, however, many years, like
Speaker 6: I really haven't listened to much of it. I did
Speaker 6: listen to this one, and my initial reaction was that,
Speaker 6: you know, a lot of it sounded really well produced.
Speaker 6: It's kind of pleasant to listen to in that way.
Speaker 6: I am not unique in my reaction to like the lyrics.
Speaker 6: I'll say, like, some of those were kind of like,
Speaker 6: kind of mind bogglingly bad, but not so much worse
Speaker 6: than like your average top forty pop fair.
Speaker 4: I'm not as swifty by any stretching.
Speaker 7: Imagine it's okay if you are, but I think I'm
Speaker 7: out right now. Amongst the three of us, I'm definitely
Speaker 7: the most in tune with.
Speaker 5: You've at least heard. Yeah, you keep up on mainstream
Speaker 5: popular music.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, I usually give all the new albums at
Speaker 7: least one listen through. You know, I dated a Swifty
Speaker 7: for a while, so like it was at a certain
Speaker 7: point my Apple Music would try to wreck you know,
Speaker 7: you know, auto play tailor car Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: I had to tell it to stop doing that.
Speaker 5: Swifty as in by Osmosis.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: But my thoughts on this album, Okay, when we talk
Speaker 7: about Taylor Swift, I'm a reputation fan.
Speaker 1: Okay, I listened to that one. That was I think
Speaker 1: the last album I listened to before this one.
Speaker 4: My favorite Endgame the Future in Edge, Big d Bars.
Speaker 7: The linkup was crazy incredible, So you know, I hope
Speaker 7: we get back to their.
Speaker 6: This album compared to reputation.
Speaker 7: Not no, no, no no, this doesn't hold up to
Speaker 7: reputation for me. Okay, Yeah, people are talking a lot
Speaker 7: about the lyrics. I don't have much room to talk.
Speaker 7: Some of my favorite artists have the most cringey lyrics.
Speaker 6: I think she gets a little bit picked on I
Speaker 6: think because of the identity she's built around being a
Speaker 6: song That's what I.
Speaker 5: Was going to say.
Speaker 1: I think the fandom hurts her in this case because
Speaker 1: they they try to make sure she's built up to
Speaker 1: be so highly esteemed as a songwriter and a lyricist
Speaker 1: and all this, so that way when anything is not great,
Speaker 1: like we wouldn't be this critical of Sabrina Carpenter or someone, yeah,
Speaker 1: just because we don't think of her that way, because
Speaker 1: people don't put her on that pedestal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not upset at me, espresso, Do I know
Speaker 5: what the fuck that means? That's fun, I mean whatever,
Speaker 5: But yes.
Speaker 7: I do feel like too, Taylor's doing this thing where
Speaker 7: she's like talking about the Internet on this album, right,
Speaker 7: and I feel like once you get a certain level
Speaker 7: of a rich you're just like out of touch with
Speaker 7: the Internet in a way. But I do feel like
Speaker 7: there is a sort of like she's singing about stuff
Speaker 7: that feels like it's like.
Speaker 4: Not ten years old, close to it, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well like yeah girl Battle Boston.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1: I listened to the album and then I was surprised
Speaker 1: by the reaction being so negative.
Speaker 5: It seems just because it to my ears.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing where it's like, if you're
Speaker 1: really in this world, you're going to notice the differences
Speaker 1: versus like I pop into some pop albums, not tailors
Speaker 1: fifth albums. So it's like, to me, this doesn't sound
Speaker 1: so dramatically different. But if I was like ahead, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd be able to be like, Okay, this is a
Speaker 1: clear you know, clearly worse than before or clearly different
Speaker 1: in this way. To me, it's not so dramatically different
Speaker 1: than even like the really old stuff, yeah, sonically or lyrically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you're saying that the songwriting is is bad, but Whires,
Speaker 1: everyone's surprised. It's always kind of like this. I'm not
Speaker 1: even saying it's bad even, but it sounds not so
Speaker 1: dramatically different.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it sounds about because I.
Speaker 1: Listened to the album a few times now and it
Speaker 1: kind of grew on me certain parts, certain songs. I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, there's actually at least a really good
Speaker 1: piece here.
Speaker 6: Yeah. A lot of people were posting albums that other
Speaker 6: female artists did at age thirty five versus a show girl. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and it was like Beyonce Lemonade and the Joni Mitchell
Speaker 6: album I can't remember. Yeah, there's like so many examples
Speaker 6: of like kind of more mature, iconic mature music.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, that was listening to Life of a show Girl.
Speaker 1: There was parts where it was like, this sounds like
Speaker 1: music for babies, And I mean that kind of respectfully.
Speaker 5: You got a private Tom, It's fun.
Speaker 1: I actually think I like the album more than you guys,
Speaker 1: But some of some music, when I'm listening to the lyrics,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this just sounds like something for a little
Speaker 1: kid to dance singing to.
Speaker 5: The sounds of it are just like, so.
Speaker 4: Let's pop please in general, And to.
Speaker 6: Be fair, it's like probably kind of the goal, like, yeah,
Speaker 6: it's a lot of.
Speaker 5: A bad thing. Yes, it's not very Uh there's not
Speaker 5: much of an edge to it. Yeah, no, you know,
Speaker 5: by design.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think I see the harsh reaction in two
Speaker 6: different ways. One is there's got to be some kind
Speaker 6: of a fatigue. I think that's kind of what you
Speaker 6: were talking about, where like the album doesn't really sound
Speaker 6: that much different than the previous ones, and yet there's
Speaker 6: a backlash.
Speaker 5: There's probably a little fatigue there.
Speaker 7: She kind of has to drink problem where she Na
Speaker 7: always has to be making music always needs to be
Speaker 7: in spotlight. I was like, it'd be interesting if she
Speaker 7: just like dropped two songs, yeah, and not an album,
Speaker 7: But she doesn't really do that.
Speaker 1: So let's move on to kind of our question that
Speaker 1: we're tackling. Do you guys think she is bigger than
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson?
Speaker 6: What I would say is that Taylor Swift might be
Speaker 6: more famous in that more people know who she is today,
Speaker 6: but Michael Jackson. But Michael Jackson is a bigger.
Speaker 5: Completed No, No, I think it's flipped.
Speaker 1: I think I think she might well have technically sold
Speaker 1: more records, yes, but I think Michael Jackson is way
Speaker 1: more famous, especially if we're not talking about just America
Speaker 1: like worldwide.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean, I forgot about you know
Speaker 5: who Michael Jackson is. You know it's and like there's
Speaker 5: symbols of him that you could show, like.
Speaker 4: Kids are wearing Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift by face, a lot of people would recognize her,
Speaker 1: but there's not like there's not like the red jacket,
Speaker 1: like yeah, there's nothing like that, you.
Speaker 4: Know, of what do you what do you think though?
Speaker 4: Who do you think is more? You think Taylor Swift
Speaker 4: is well.
Speaker 6: I would only say that in the sense that there
Speaker 6: might be a chance that more people know who she is,
Speaker 6: like today today, Michael Jackson's been dead for fifteen years
Speaker 6: at least, and so I don't even I'm not saying
Speaker 6: that more people know who she is. I'm just saying
Speaker 6: I could see a world where now in terms of
Speaker 6: like bigger, more, I don't.
Speaker 5: Know the hedge. It's like impossible to guess.
Speaker 4: So you don't, you don't, you don't feel strongly. I
Speaker 4: mean you think it could be a toss up.
Speaker 6: If it depends on age, I guess if you're thirty,
Speaker 6: in up Michael Jackson.
Speaker 7: But the question is just more general, like in the world,
Speaker 7: who's right now?
Speaker 6: If you serve the internationally, Michael Jackson is a bigger,
Speaker 6: more known person.
Speaker 1: And who do you think has sold more albums? However
Speaker 1: you want to quantify that, like who sold more music?
Speaker 6: It's not fair, but Taylor Swift. It's not fair to
Speaker 6: Michael Jackson had to get on a you have to
Speaker 6: get on a bus to go buy his ship like today.
Speaker 5: But that's what you think.
Speaker 4: I think it's crazy to even.
Speaker 7: Suggest that Taylor Swift is bigger than Michael Jackson. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I think Michael Jackson is, you know, besides Jesus, you know,
Speaker 7: like the most popular person of all time, you know,
Speaker 7: and it's beyond the music, right, It's like it's.
Speaker 5: A thing Jesus phenomenon. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 7: Like everyone knows who Michael Jackson is in in terms
Speaker 7: of reach, right, Michael Jackson he was, you know, famous
Speaker 7: when he was like five. He was in the industry
Speaker 7: for a while. People who were very young knew who
Speaker 7: Michael jacksons. We are very old know who Michael Jackson is.
Speaker 7: People can name Michael Jackson songs. Taylor Swift feels a
Speaker 7: bit like, sure, maybe there's name recognition, but I think
Speaker 7: people know less about Taylor Swift outside of like she's
Speaker 7: dating Travis Kelsey, Like people don't My mom isn't. No,
Speaker 7: she couldn't name a Taylor Swift song. She couldn't sing
Speaker 7: a Taylor Swift song. A lot of people who know
Speaker 7: Taylor Swift is could not name anything about her music.
Speaker 7: If you know who Michael Jackson is, you could probably
Speaker 7: name one Michael Jackson song.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: To be fair to Taylor Swift, I don't think any
Speaker 7: artists ever will reach that's level.
Speaker 4: Fault of stardom.
Speaker 7: I think we're past that, We've passed the sort of
Speaker 7: like everyone is listening to the same thing. Yeah, everything
Speaker 7: is so much more fragmented nowadays that the closest we
Speaker 7: have to like everybody's watching or listening to this thing,
Speaker 7: Like what super Bowl halftime show?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep, it's like the one moment we have a yeah.
Speaker 5: And even that feels like decreasing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, where I come in on the kind of
Speaker 1: impact sort of thing, It's like Michael Jackson is popular
Speaker 1: across races, across ages, like you were saying, like across
Speaker 1: the world, like like my parents listen to Michael Jackson,
Speaker 1: your parents Like it's.
Speaker 5: Versus like Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I have a very simple picture
Speaker 1: of who in my mind is the Tailor Shift listener.
Speaker 5: Obviously it's broader than that. Clearly based on the numbers,
Speaker 5: it has to be. Yeah, But like a lot of
Speaker 5: people would not.
Speaker 1: Be able to name the Tailor Shift songs in the
Speaker 1: way that many people of all types would be able
Speaker 1: to name Michael Jackson songs and talk about him, like
Speaker 1: you were saying, I am.
Speaker 6: Curious about like young people today, we can probably no
Speaker 6: longer call ourselves young people, but people who are like
Speaker 6: kids to teens, what their relationship to Michael Jackson?
Speaker 7: Yeah, my brother, well maybe because you know, up, my
Speaker 7: brother knows who Michael Jackson is though.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and like you seventeen seventeen.
Speaker 7: Yeah, like I'm seeing videos of like, you know, three
Speaker 7: year old canting to Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because you could picture if you know, we
Speaker 1: had kids, Yes, they might hear Michael Jackson.
Speaker 5: Ye, because of us, and then they know who. That's
Speaker 5: all it takes.
Speaker 7: Take Michael Jackson out of the equation, just like thriller. Right,
Speaker 7: It's like every Halloween thriller is going to be played everywhere.
Speaker 7: And even if you don't know that's a Michael Jackson thing,
Speaker 7: it's like, well you know that song, you know that video.
Speaker 7: Someone brought this up to me too when I was
Speaker 7: talking to him about this conversation about like, do you
Speaker 7: think a woman could ever be as popular as any
Speaker 7: famous man in terms of musicians, And I was like,
Speaker 7: actually no, because I think because women listen to female musicians,
Speaker 7: and I think a lot of men will not listen. Yeah, women,
Speaker 7: by a lot of well, straight men will not listening
Speaker 7: to women musicians or you know, just because it's like
Speaker 7: that's a girl thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's true because even like the most
Speaker 1: praised like Beyonce album or whatever, Like whoever is the
Speaker 1: most acceptable female star for men to listen to? I
Speaker 1: don't think it would be Beyonce, but maybe yeah, you
Speaker 1: just don't see.
Speaker 5: It reaching that height. Yeah at all.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk to someone who wrote a book crunching the
Speaker 1: numbers when it comes to music data, and so hopefully
Speaker 1: you can answer some of these questions. But first let's
Speaker 1: hear from a few devoted Swifties about what the singer
Speaker 1: means to them.
Speaker 3: So, I think Taylor Swift is so important to me
Speaker 3: and so special to me because of the way she's
Speaker 3: able to paint all the emotions of the world into song.
Speaker 3: You can feel the life just flowing through every single note, rhythm, melody.
Speaker 3: It's infectious.
Speaker 8: I always said, you wrote the soundtrack to my life,
Speaker 8: just because I fell in love for music in like
Speaker 8: two thousand and six and it was like sixth grade.
Speaker 8: I think around them, and even if I haven't been
Speaker 8: through the things she's singing about, like she was singing
Speaker 8: about breakups, and I had never had a relationship that
Speaker 8: I'm like, oh my god, Like she gets my feelings
Speaker 8: for me.
Speaker 9: What makes Taylor so special is her unhindered feminine voice,
Speaker 9: the fact that she as a woman, can express her
Speaker 9: feelings as a woman without having to be confined to.
Speaker 4: As much patriarchy.
Speaker 9: She still is complied to patriarchy, but the shackles of
Speaker 9: patriarchy are lighter than they have ever been.
Speaker 3: I kind of say she's created a better church, one
Speaker 3: where there tends to be a higher bar in terms
Speaker 3: of we don't want misogynists here, we don't want homophobic
Speaker 3: people here. We love people who want to express themselves,
Speaker 3: whether that's painting their nails or dressing up to go
Speaker 3: to concerts.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think people will also sometimes reduce her
Speaker 8: relatability to just like, oh, she's a basic white girl,
Speaker 8: so all the basic white girls see them at her.
Speaker 8: And I'm like, that's like a crazyly misogynistic things to
Speaker 8: say that, like, oh, all these women are just so basic,
Speaker 8: and that's like that's who supports her, and that's why
Speaker 8: she's so famous. It's like, no, she has a lots
Speaker 8: of reasons for it. But she also has like massive
Speaker 8: fan bases in Asia South America, like so many countries
Speaker 8: and so like, she has managed to find a way
Speaker 8: to just kind of like tap into being relatable to everyone.
Speaker 5: So we are back.
Speaker 1: We're trying to figure out how Taylor Swift's success compares
Speaker 1: to past superstars and guess some answers were joined by
Speaker 1: Chris Stalareva. Chris Mind introducing herself.
Speaker 10: Yeah, sure, my name is Chris Stallareva. I feel like
Speaker 10: I should say that again. I work in the music business.
Speaker 10: I work for a music streaming company called audio Mac,
Speaker 10: which is more like the SoundCloud universe. People could upload directly,
Speaker 10: and we're very popular in Africa and the Caribbean and
Speaker 10: I do the data analytics work there. But outside of
Speaker 10: my job, I do a lot of writing about music
Speaker 10: and data. I have a relatively popular newsletter and I
Speaker 10: have a book coming out called Uncharted Territory, which is
Speaker 10: a data driven history of popular music. So I'm very
Speaker 10: much in the music data sphere.
Speaker 5: So I guess let's kind of get straight into it.
Speaker 5: How popular is Tailor Swift?
Speaker 1: And first let's focus maybe on simply like music sales,
Speaker 1: and if you want to bring in like concert tickets,
Speaker 1: but like kind of pure numbers based.
Speaker 10: Yeah, what did you say, I mean, everyone's intuition here
Speaker 10: is correct. Taylor Swift is very, very popular by the RIAA,
Speaker 10: which is the organization in the US that certifies sales,
Speaker 10: so they hand out like the gold and platinum records.
Speaker 10: According to them, presently, Taylor Swift is the second best
Speaker 10: selling artist of all time behind Drake. When I looked
Speaker 10: at this a couple of years ago, number one was
Speaker 10: still the Beatles, which is, you know, decades upon decades
Speaker 10: of album sales. So Taylor Swift is very popular right now,
Speaker 10: and I can't imagine a world, especially as Drake's star
Speaker 10: has fallen, where she does not overtake him at some
Speaker 10: point in terms of sales. It's worth pointing out, though,
Speaker 10: that it's sort of an apples to oranges comparison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, can you explain kind of how it's
Speaker 1: changed or how we measure these things.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so Billboard, who does the charts, the RIAA, they're
Speaker 10: trying to figure out what the most popular records are,
Speaker 10: which is on the surface seems very easy. But this
Speaker 10: day and age, we can consume music in tons of
Speaker 10: different ways. Back in the day, it was really just sales.
Speaker 10: You went out, you purchase a record, that counts as
Speaker 10: a sale. But even back then, there were some oddities
Speaker 10: where if you put out a double album, so an
Speaker 10: album with two discs, you know, the Wall by Pink
Speaker 10: Floyd or the White Album by the Beatles, one purchase
Speaker 10: of that counted as two sales.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, I didn't know that.
Speaker 10: So there was always there's always be fye. Yeah, there's
Speaker 10: always been weird chart behavior and weird things that artists
Speaker 10: could do to try to run themselves up the charts
Speaker 10: outside of just outright fraud, which was also you know,
Speaker 10: that's a music industry classic. But it's more complicated now
Speaker 10: because you still physical purchases which count the same. I
Speaker 10: buy a piece of vinyl by By a CD that
Speaker 10: counts as a sale. But there's also digital downloads and
Speaker 10: there is also streams. So all of these bodies that
Speaker 10: try to calculate popularity, the two biggest in the US
Speaker 10: being the RIAA and Billboard, they equate digital downloads streams
Speaker 10: in sales in some formula, So the RIA says one
Speaker 10: hundred and fifty streams of a track equals one sale.
Speaker 10: Fifteen hundred streams of songs on an album equals one
Speaker 10: album sale. Now this seems arbitrary, and to a degree
Speaker 10: it is. I mean, someone just has to decide if
Speaker 10: you play a track one hundred and fifty times, that's
Speaker 10: a sale. But I think even if you come up
Speaker 10: with some logic like, oh, the revenue from one hundred
Speaker 10: and fifty tracks is about equal to what someone would
Speaker 10: say been purchasing it. Okay, there's you could you could
Speaker 10: get to some logical explanation. But in the same sense,
Speaker 10: streaming is much more passive. It's like, I'm going to
Speaker 10: listen to every Drake record at least once, even if
Speaker 10: I would never go out and purchase.
Speaker 5: A Drake, and it costs you basically nothing, just my time.
Speaker 10: Yeah, my time is my only expense. And if you
Speaker 10: go back and look at like the ria's all time
Speaker 10: best selling artist two years ago, it was mostly still
Speaker 10: old timers, you know, the Beatles, Pink, Floyd, ACDC, Michael
Speaker 10: Jackson's of the World. If you look at it today,
Speaker 10: it's you still have a lot of those older acts,
Speaker 10: but the top of the list is really dominated by
Speaker 10: more recent acts who still do very well on streaming.
Speaker 10: So I think streaming inflates these numbers to some degree
Speaker 10: just by the way the math works, but also because
Speaker 10: it's just it's more passive.
Speaker 1: And thinking about it, like, Okay, if you buy a
Speaker 1: CD or an album, how many times do you listen
Speaker 1: to that?
Speaker 5: Like, say you went out in about the fifty cent album?
Speaker 1: Sure, how many times do you think, yeah, yeah, take
Speaker 1: us back there.
Speaker 5: How many times do you think you listen to that album?
Speaker 6: I mean over the I mean it takes years, I
Speaker 6: think to Like, that's a lot of to that, man,
Speaker 6: I mean it's a lot of listeners.
Speaker 1: I'm almost arguing they should be lowering that number. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, And you're kind of thinking about it the
Speaker 1: same way.
Speaker 6: Help me understand this. Is it accurate to say that
Speaker 6: fifteen hundred different people listening to the same song once
Speaker 6: is equal to one person buying the physical album.
Speaker 10: By the chart math, Yes, and it's not just The
Speaker 10: other oddity is you don't have to listen to the
Speaker 10: entire album if there's one really popular song. Oh and
Speaker 10: it's the same with digital downloads. They say ten track
Speaker 10: sales is equal to an album sale, but if you
Speaker 10: have ten people purchase whatever the single is, that counts
Speaker 10: as an album.
Speaker 1: Sale, and then because there's playlists two like the Spotify playlist.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's getting extreamed when you didn't even seek it out.
Speaker 10: People always say music listening is much more passive today,
Speaker 10: and I agree to in some sense that it is,
Speaker 10: but it's not like back in the day. Like back
Speaker 10: in the day passive. This thing which you would turn
Speaker 10: on the radio or whatever CD I have in my
Speaker 10: car is what's getting played.
Speaker 6: Earlier, we were talking about another example I'd love to
Speaker 6: hear your thoughts on, which is this the weekend song
Speaker 6: Blinding Lights, the most popular song, apparently the most popular
Speaker 6: song in history. Now, I like that song, but why
Speaker 6: is there such a discrepancy between that stat and how
Speaker 6: like normal people feel about that song.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I've also think about this a lot. The other
Speaker 10: one is I don't know if it's number one or
Speaker 10: it's now up. There is a bar song Tipsy by
Speaker 10: Shaozi Oh yeah, which is very popular. But they're those
Speaker 10: songs are They're very popular, they're well liked, But I
Speaker 10: think it's really a streaming phenomenon. We're streaming inflate stuff.
Speaker 10: Whereas before Blinding Lights took over as Billboard's most popular
Speaker 10: song of all time. Previously it was the Twist, and
Speaker 10: I'm like, the Twist is clearly like a cultural touchstone.
Speaker 10: Even if you're are young, you've probably heard the Twist
Speaker 10: at least once or something like the macarena is like,
Speaker 10: whereas Blinding Lights doesn't feel like that to me. And
Speaker 10: I think part of that is there's like a cultural fracturing.
Speaker 10: But I think additionally it's just that we count things differently,
Speaker 10: Whereas before we were counting sales, and now we're counting
Speaker 10: consumption or listening. Like the equivalent would be how many
Speaker 10: times did you actually spin your copy of Hey Jude.
Speaker 5: By the Beatles?
Speaker 8: Ye?
Speaker 10: I don't know, Yeah, I've done it a lot.
Speaker 6: Why can't they just call it the most streamed song
Speaker 6: of all time? It makes me think of like when
Speaker 6: Watched the Throne came out, for example, and I had
Speaker 6: to get in my car drive to best buy Wait
Speaker 6: in the Line and then buy the album. That to me,
Speaker 6: it doesn't seem fair that that is valued the same
Speaker 6: as someone accidentally listening to a song today fift times
Speaker 6: or fifteen hundred different people you know accidentally listening to
Speaker 6: that song on a playlist or something.
Speaker 10: This is the magic of Taylor Swift is that she
Speaker 10: can get people. They still go to Target and buy
Speaker 10: eight different versions.
Speaker 1: Can So can you elaborate on that, Like how big
Speaker 1: of a factor do you think that is?
Speaker 10: I think that's huge. So they just announced that this
Speaker 10: new album is gonna set the record for the most
Speaker 10: physical sales in a single an opening week for an album.
Speaker 10: It's going to best Adell's album twenty five. Now a
Speaker 10: Dell's album twenty five. There's like no bonus track editions,
Speaker 10: It's just the album. So you've got to assume most
Speaker 10: people who purchase that are just a single person buying
Speaker 10: the album. Where I think there's been like thirty different
Speaker 10: versions of this Taylor Swift album created, and like each
Speaker 10: one has a different bonus track.
Speaker 5: Of this album.
Speaker 10: Yes, and there are different people who will go out
Speaker 10: and buy every single copy. So I wish there was
Speaker 10: a stat like how many unique people purchased the record
Speaker 10: because I mean, she has a super rabid fan base.
Speaker 10: I mean, you know you're talking concert tickets before the
Speaker 10: Eras tour is the most lucrative tour of all time.
Speaker 10: Even with all this weird chart math, still very very popular.
Speaker 10: I mean, there's no there's no two ways about that.
Speaker 7: That's what makes it weird to me though, that she's
Speaker 7: doing the bonus stuff. It's just like, you don't need
Speaker 7: to do that, like you're Taylor Swift. You know this
Speaker 7: is like btier artists like maneuvers, And it was weird
Speaker 7: because you know, not to be this guy. But she
Speaker 7: did say before this album came out, I'm not doing
Speaker 7: the bonus track thing. You're getting just whatever the twelve
Speaker 7: songs I'm putting out, or the twelve songs that are
Speaker 7: going to be on the album, you can say, Okay,
Speaker 7: they're not new songs, they're acoustic.
Speaker 4: Versions or whatever.
Speaker 7: So maybe that's her workaround, yeah, but she made it
Speaker 7: seem like she wasn't because she got a lot of
Speaker 7: blowback for the last album for doing all these different iterations,
Speaker 7: Like you're saying, Okay, I got to buy the album
Speaker 7: six times to just get the six different bonus tracks. Yeah,
Speaker 7: because each album only has one bonus track.
Speaker 6: It's crazy, and all the different versions are not like
Speaker 6: on streaming right, like not to go half to actually
Speaker 6: buy it.
Speaker 10: So everyone's always trying to game the system because if
Speaker 10: you popularity begets popularity, you have a number one record,
Speaker 10: you know, it's something to hang your hat on. More
Speaker 10: people are gonna listen even if you're not a Taylor
Speaker 10: Swift fan. And I tell you that it's the most
Speaker 10: purchased album and the first week ever. Yeah, interest, Yeah,
Speaker 10: you might go check it out. It's like, how the
Speaker 10: greatest marketing for Thriller ever is just it's the greatest
Speaker 10: selling album of all time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the main kind of question we're here is kind
Speaker 1: of comparing Taylor to especially Michael Jackson, but also like
Speaker 1: the Beatles and yeah, you know, so how how would
Speaker 1: you say her stats compared to like, you know, peak
Speaker 1: Beatlemania and then Michael Jackson.
Speaker 10: First of all, it's like, obviously it's an unanswerable question
Speaker 10: because it is like Apple's to oranges comparison. But I
Speaker 10: pulled some stuff that I think can inform the debate
Speaker 10: a little. I feel like the only artists of the
Speaker 10: twentieth century or the twenty first century you could really
Speaker 10: compare Taylor Swift's popularity too, And I'm going back far
Speaker 10: are bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson,
Speaker 10: and maybe Madonna. But I think those older artists, like
Speaker 10: the Frank Sinatras of the World very popular, but there
Speaker 10: wasn't the media ecosystem that we have now. I think
Speaker 10: the Beatles are the first example of an our artist
Speaker 10: be me Elvis two that you can truly compare because
Speaker 10: television was finally a thing. There was a very centralized
Speaker 10: media ecosystem you could interact with, not just the music
Speaker 10: the artists were putting out, but what they looked like
Speaker 10: they were going to be on television. How long do
Speaker 10: you think Beatlemania will last?
Speaker 2: As long as you all keep coming?
Speaker 10: And Michael Jackson obviously takes that to a completely different level.
Speaker 10: And they also the Beatles are only together for like
Speaker 10: ten years, but when they were around, stadium touring was
Speaker 10: not a thing. Like they were the first artist to
Speaker 10: play an outdoor stadium, which was the former Say Stadium
Speaker 10: in Queens. So again it makes all comparisons hard, but
Speaker 10: I think with Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift you can
Speaker 10: sort of get an apples to apples comparison. And one
Speaker 10: way I was looking at this was comparing his to
Speaker 10: his last completed tour to the Aras tour. And I'll
Speaker 10: give you a couple stats here that I think are interesting.
Speaker 10: The arastour sold ten million tickets across one hundred and
Speaker 10: forty nine shows, which is about sixty eight thousand per show,
Speaker 10: was in twenty five countries, but eighty five percent of
Speaker 10: the tour dates were either in the US, UK or Canada.
Speaker 10: Michael Jackson's last completed world tour was his History World
Speaker 10: Tour in ninety six to ninety seven, sold four and
Speaker 10: a half million tickets across eighty two shows, which is
Speaker 10: an average of fifty five thousand per show, which is less,
Speaker 10: but only six dates, or seven percent of those dates
Speaker 10: were in the US, UK and Canada. In fact, only
Speaker 10: two shows are in the US and they were both
Speaker 10: in Hawaii, which I thought was crazy. None were in Canada.
Speaker 10: And he hits like a ton of countries that Taylor
Speaker 10: Swift doesn't, like Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Roni or Russia. It's
Speaker 10: not to say that Taylor Shift couldn't play any of
Speaker 10: those places, but it As I was looking into this,
Speaker 10: it just struck me how global Michael Jackson's fame was.
Speaker 10: And there were some stats about when Taylor Swift took
Speaker 10: the Aris tour to Europe, like twenty percent of tickets
Speaker 10: in the Paris show were purchased by Americans. We're gonna
Speaker 10: fly out now, people who love done that. So I
Speaker 10: think Michael Jackson's fame is it's hard to quantify how
Speaker 10: large it was. Another crazy fact, he was planning this
Speaker 10: this is It tour and he died and it was
Speaker 10: supposed to be ten nights at the two Arena in
Speaker 10: the UK, which holds twenty thousand people. Because of demand,
Speaker 10: they had to add forty more dates just for that arena. Yeah,
Speaker 10: so it was gonna be fifty nights at one arena
Speaker 10: in London.
Speaker 7: Well that was the whole thing because they were saying
Speaker 7: that he wasn't in the condition to play that many shows,
Speaker 7: and they were like, but the money looks really good
Speaker 7: if we keep adding dates.
Speaker 5: Forty is crazy total total of fifty.
Speaker 4: This is it. I mean, this is really it.
Speaker 5: This is the final curtain call. I'll see you in July.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 6: That nineties History World tour. Easy to imagine that if
Speaker 6: he added six to ten shows in the US like
Speaker 6: New York, LA, Chicago, that it would probably eclipse or
Speaker 6: at least match this the arastour.
Speaker 10: You yeah, you would, you would think.
Speaker 8: So.
Speaker 10: I think Michael Jackson's global theme. I think I don't
Speaker 10: want to say Taylor Swift is a US phenomenon because
Speaker 10: she's not. I mean she could. She's one of the
Speaker 10: most famous people on Earth. I have I've had this
Speaker 10: debate often with people, but who the most recognizable person
Speaker 10: on Earth is outside of politicians and like the pope,
Speaker 10: And I feel like she's she's got to be up there.
Speaker 10: But I think we're obviously all in the US. I
Speaker 10: think our fame is really magnified in the Western world,
Speaker 10: whereas Michael Jackson was super famous in the US and
Speaker 10: was constantly you know, in the tabloids for bad reasons,
Speaker 10: but his fame really went across borders in a way
Speaker 10: that I don't think we really see with other artists.
Speaker 10: So I think Michael Jackson is the only the only
Speaker 10: comparison point here. But otherwise, I mean, it's unprecedented.
Speaker 6: When it comes to stream sales, album sales. I have
Speaker 6: kind of a like a bond Rip question to ask,
Speaker 6: which is like, when you comparison an artist today to
Speaker 6: someone in the eighties or seventies or sixties in the
Speaker 6: US alone, Let's say there's like, isn't it the case
Speaker 6: that there's like substantially more people.
Speaker 5: Yes, today, I actually did have the same thought.
Speaker 10: No, that I also was thinking about that. That is
Speaker 10: one hundred percent true. The population is much larger, Yeah, which.
Speaker 4: Is like, that's funny.
Speaker 10: I don't think people consider those very basic demographic questions
Speaker 10: when you think about stuff like this in terms of
Speaker 10: I guess, gross number of people. It's possible that even
Speaker 10: if Taylor Swift has less goal will reach, she's reaching
Speaker 10: more fans.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mentioned earlier. Yeah, interesting your piece that she wrote.
Speaker 1: I think in twenty twenty three you talked about kind
Speaker 1: of her arc as an artist, in her longevity and
Speaker 1: kind of what's unusual about it, like kind of peaking later.
Speaker 10: Pick your favorite artist. It's almost one hundred percent certain
Speaker 10: that their most important works were released before they were thirty.
Speaker 10: Popular music is a young person's game. It doesn't mean
Speaker 10: older people don't put out great stuff, but in terms
Speaker 10: of like the pop culture universe, it's it's a young
Speaker 10: person's game. And Taylor Stiff was obviously famous, very very young,
Speaker 10: but she her popularity I think is cresting. I mean,
Speaker 10: I can't imagine getting bigger than this, but who knows.
Speaker 10: When she's in her mid thirties, which is rare. I mean,
Speaker 10: there are other superstars who maintain their popularity over time,
Speaker 10: like Elton John's a good example. He was super famous
Speaker 10: in the seventies, sort of fell off a bit in
Speaker 10: the eighties, and then in the nineties he became like
Speaker 10: a legacy act. But I think the thing that's special
Speaker 10: about Taylor Swift. Are different about Taylor Swift is she
Speaker 10: has made her legacy material and like her new material
Speaker 10: sort of exists on the same plane where she still
Speaker 10: feels culturally vital for the new things that she's doing,
Speaker 10: while the old stuff also feels really vital. Actually, if
Speaker 10: you'll let me read this quote. This is from a
Speaker 10: critic named Stephen Hyde, and he's a great music writer
Speaker 10: for up Rocks and someone it was like an ask
Speaker 10: good the music critic column, and they said, will Taylorstoft's
Speaker 10: popularity ever fade? And his observation here, I think really
Speaker 10: points out why her fame is so unique. This is
Speaker 10: the part of Taylor Swift's career that is unprecedented. She
Speaker 10: has rather brilliantly convinced the public that her past and
Speaker 10: present coexists right now. She's dismantled the former New work
Speaker 10: versus old work binary for artist and replaced it with
Speaker 10: the eras paradigm, where her songs are parceled into different
Speaker 10: concurrent channels that are equal accessible. It's the same logic
Speaker 10: that streaming platforms have taught us, where all music history
Speaker 10: exists in the same bucket, and Taylor Swift has figured
Speaker 10: out how to reprogram the public's internal algorithm better than
Speaker 10: any of her competitors, so that her historical theme doesn't
Speaker 10: count against her contemporary fame. She gets to be a
Speaker 10: legacy act and irrelevant pop act simultaneously, which is why
Speaker 10: I don't expect her fame to fade anytime soon. We
Speaker 10: saw this with the re release of her record.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, I was just thinking, we haven't even talked
Speaker 7: about which, in some ways I think really helped her popularity,
Speaker 7: right because it felt like we kind of hit peak Taylor,
Speaker 7: and then the re release has happened and it's like, okay, no,
Speaker 7: we're still going up.
Speaker 10: That's some people have pointed out that they think had
Speaker 10: COVID not happened, Taylor Swift would not have become as
Speaker 10: big as she did. Obviously, she was already big, but
Speaker 10: her popularity has sort of reached like a peak. And
Speaker 10: then during COVID no one could go to concerts. She
Speaker 10: puts out these two tomit acclaimed records, Folklore and Evermore
Speaker 10: that you know, reprove to people like she's a very
Speaker 10: seriously talented songwriter. And then you come out of COVID
Speaker 10: and there was a huge demand for live events. She's
Speaker 10: gonna put on this career spanning tour, and I think
Speaker 10: that's a pretty good theory that she sort of benefited
Speaker 10: from all that pent up demand.
Speaker 1: That quote sounds true even with kind of all the
Speaker 1: criticism of the new album's getting where people seem a
Speaker 1: lot of people seem disappointed with it, but like, I
Speaker 1: still don't really see the stuff of like oh I
Speaker 1: wish it sounded like Fearless or whatever, like whatever the
Speaker 1: early YEA classic stuff is, Like I don't see the
Speaker 1: same way with the Like we did an episode on
Speaker 1: Kanye recently and like that very early on he was
Speaker 1: getting like I want college drop out of like basically
Speaker 1: by album three he was getting that, and like that's
Speaker 1: more common than not. Is like people always want the
Speaker 1: classic early thing and like, yeah, I've never really seen
Speaker 1: that with her, even as she shifted from country to
Speaker 1: pop and now to like whatever this new wave of
Speaker 1: her pop is like it's not as much this like rabid,
Speaker 1: like she fell off, you know, even if they are
Speaker 1: disappointed with this album, it's.
Speaker 10: Like you don't you don't understand what she's doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems like, well, maybe next one she'll
Speaker 1: be back, you know, or whatever. You know. And then
Speaker 1: also in that sub sect post, you compared her to
Speaker 1: Michael Bolton as far as like the timeline.
Speaker 5: Can you can you kind of run that back quickly?
Speaker 10: Yeah, So I was looking for a couple people in
Speaker 10: this this piece about you know who who can we
Speaker 10: compare Taylor Swift The arc of Taylor Swift's career. Two
Speaker 10: Michael Bolton. If you were old enough, you'll recognize him
Speaker 10: from like commercials in the nineties where they were selling
Speaker 10: love song CDs and it was always how am I
Speaker 10: supposed to Live without you? He's singing these big ballads.
Speaker 10: But Michael Bolton's career started in the late seventies as
Speaker 10: more of like a rock singer, and then he rebranded
Speaker 10: himself and he reached the crest of his popularity like
Speaker 10: fifteen years later in the nineties. Michael Botlan is in
Speaker 10: No way close to as popular as Taylor Swift even
Speaker 10: at his peak. Yeah, but like I what I was
Speaker 10: trying to get it was the arc of his career,
Speaker 10: like peaking later than your average person. Barbara Streisan's.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was the other main one. You comped her.
Speaker 10: Two because and again this is just career arc where
Speaker 10: barbar streisand's very popular from early in her career. You know,
Speaker 10: she's like nineteen or twenty on Broadway putting out platinum records.
Speaker 10: But I think her best selling record of all times
Speaker 10: she didn't put out until nineteen eighty, which was I
Speaker 10: think called Guilty. It was a collaboration with Barry Gibb
Speaker 10: from the Beg's. So that's like, you know, twenty years
Speaker 10: after your debut, you're releasing your most popular record. That's
Speaker 10: not common, and that's something Taylor Swift is doing currently.
Speaker 10: Most Like I said, most people, their most popular record
Speaker 10: is usually one of their first couple records, and you
Speaker 10: usually they're younger than thirty when it happens, not to
Speaker 10: make all us thirty year olds, damn.
Speaker 6: So it's possible that her most popular song ever isn't
Speaker 6: out yet.
Speaker 10: Taylor Swift, It's possible. I think over the long term,
Speaker 10: it's highly unlikely.
Speaker 5: Because she's competing for herself now.
Speaker 10: Yeah, even if her fans are rabid for new music. Like,
Speaker 10: if you're a very passive listener to Taylor Swift, the
Speaker 10: songs you probably know are like blank Space, Shake it Off,
Speaker 10: you Belong with Me.
Speaker 5: That's the best one sounds to me, like like.
Speaker 1: On like the White People list of just like you
Speaker 1: just know all the lyrics to this, like my Osmosis,
Speaker 1: like the Killers Born and.
Speaker 11: Yeah, like I just know this, Yeah, Like those are
Speaker 11: two where are just like yeah, I just know everywhere
Speaker 11: to this. Yeah, we all fall on the in the
Speaker 11: group of people who think that, like it's kind of
Speaker 11: impossible to compare really, uh, Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson
Speaker 11: in terms of fame.
Speaker 4: But if you have, I think Michael Jackson's bigger.
Speaker 6: Well, you were with the kind of you were describing
Speaker 6: how it's like kind of apples and oranges based on
Speaker 6: the different environments of today, and.
Speaker 10: And uh, yeah, if if you had, if I had
Speaker 10: gun your head into my head, Yeah, I'm still I'm
Speaker 10: still gonna go with Michael Jackson in this for the
Speaker 10: reasons we talked about it earlier, but I mean, Taylor
Speaker 10: Swift's up there. It's like you're talking about unimaginable amounts
Speaker 10: of fame.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I will say this to Taylor's credit.
Speaker 7: I think the the odds are stacked against her in
Speaker 7: a lot of ways because of the you know, how
Speaker 7: culture is so fractured nowadays. Yeah, like I think, you know,
Speaker 7: maybe if you know she was growing up in at
Speaker 7: the same time period as Michael Jackson, maybe she would
Speaker 7: be bigger.
Speaker 5: All right, well, thanks, Chris, if you want to plug
Speaker 5: your book one more time.
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, well, Uncharted territory with numbers tell us about
Speaker 10: the biggest hits, songs and ourselves. It's about how I
Speaker 10: listened to every number one hit in history, and I
Speaker 10: wrote a data driven history of popular music using that
Speaker 10: crazy listening journey.
Speaker 5: All right, so we are back.
Speaker 1: So Chris just helpefully explained, you know, kind of how
Speaker 1: music is even measured these days. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: as best as we could expect, answered our question as
Speaker 1: far as how Taylor compares to Michael Jackson and others.
Speaker 5: What do you guys think? Are you satisfied? I think so.
Speaker 6: I mean we I think all three of us kind
Speaker 6: of agreed that Michael Jackson is a bigger, more famous person.
Speaker 6: I definitely had a little bit of like, well, I
Speaker 6: wouldn't be surprised to learn something new here. When he
Speaker 6: was talking about how Michael Jackson's tour like demographics were
Speaker 6: just so much more diverse than that.
Speaker 1: That was a big thing to me that that confirmed
Speaker 1: kind of what my intuition was was just like the
Speaker 1: internetal effects. Yeah, when he's playing out the tour dates
Speaker 1: and it's like he's barely even coming, he's not even
Speaker 1: playing in the continental United.
Speaker 5: States, doesn't need to Like that's a different level.
Speaker 1: And like, obviously, yeah, anytime he could, he could just
Speaker 1: be like I'm going to play Madison Square Garden for
Speaker 1: three years, you know what I mean, Like.
Speaker 5: He could have done that at any point.
Speaker 7: Something that came to mind for me that you remember,
Speaker 7: there used to be a debate and I think this
Speaker 7: is pretty much settled now. At one point, and I
Speaker 7: would say I was on the other side of this
Speaker 7: debate at the time, was like who is bigger, Beyonce
Speaker 7: or Taylor Swift. I think it's to say now that
Speaker 7: Taylor Swift is bigger. I think some of that is
Speaker 7: like Beyonce, I think intentionally like, yeah, it's making music
Speaker 7: and has decided artistically to like move in a direction
Speaker 7: that isn't as broad.
Speaker 5: Not focused on just getting the pop.
Speaker 4: And that's contributed to it.
Speaker 7: But at one point I would fight you on like
Speaker 7: obviously Beyonce is, even if her music doesn't sell as much,
Speaker 7: is more famous.
Speaker 5: Yea, and more of a cultural figure. Yes, at that Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think probably before I say, pre aerostour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna yeah, I was gonna say basically
Speaker 1: up to maybe the maybe you could go a little
Speaker 1: earlier than but like, yeah, once we passed like the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine era, like the once we entered the
Speaker 1: true pop star thing, that's when it's like, okay, now
Speaker 1: it's like a contest.
Speaker 6: I remember my take from that debate being kind of
Speaker 6: the inverse of this one, where I thought Taylor Swift
Speaker 6: was probably more popular but that there was no contest
Speaker 6: in terms of cultural influence or like impact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's it's basically the single Lady's Video is
Speaker 1: so much more iconic than anything that Taylor Swift which
Speaker 1: is put.
Speaker 5: Out, which of what connye Was point was, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's like.
Speaker 1: Disagree with his methods, but he was He's right, like,
Speaker 1: you can see one frame of that blur out the
Speaker 1: faces and you know what it is. I don't think
Speaker 1: any tailorshift video really has that, even though I could
Speaker 1: kind of describe some of them, but.
Speaker 7: Well, has any video impact of single Ladies and single Lady.
Speaker 5: Top five Swift songs?
Speaker 6: I don't, which would genuinely I don't know if I
Speaker 6: can name five of them. That's why I'm like such
Speaker 6: a bad right now, Okay, you got you Belong to Me,
Speaker 6: which is a banger from my high school days. Is
Speaker 6: reputation a song or just an album.
Speaker 7: Counter It's called Endgame, but the song is it's funny
Speaker 7: because a reputation, but it's called Dames.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, and what about does this album count?
Speaker 5: Probably?
Speaker 6: Okay, this sounds all right, then I could probably do it. Uh,
Speaker 6: We're actually romantic, which is the Charlie XCX disc Redwood,
Speaker 6: which is about Travis Kelsey's deck.
Speaker 5: It's not damn, man, just damn. I can't even folklore evermore.
Speaker 4: All right, we're gonna go out one song from Life
Speaker 4: of a Showgirl. What song are we gonna play?
Speaker 5: I like open Light?
Speaker 4: Okay? Or yeah?
Speaker 5: I think that's the one.
Speaker 4: I like, Let's do Let's do twenty seconds ol.
Speaker 2: Hell's Hell's, Hell's, Hell's Hells.
Speaker 1: No such Thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Kid Osborne and Mangeshkidur. The show is
Speaker 1: created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph. Theme
Speaker 1: and credits song by Manny Fidel. Mixing is by Steve Bone.
Speaker 1: Our guest this week is Chris Dalaiva. Find the link
Speaker 1: to his newsletter and his upcoming book in the show
Speaker 1: notes below. Thank you, Chris, and special thanks to Irene
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