1989 Sold At Twice the Rate of Reputation

[Miracle 14,068]

Warning: Long rant. This isn't exactly about her sales, as they're more than decent (she still has a crazy fanbase of upper class teenagers), it's regarding the reflection of that success in the general public and social media. 

At first I was reluctant to recognise her decline but at this point it'd be delusional to do so. I haven't seen this level of impopularity on a pop star since, probably, Azealia Banks, who doesn't exactly fit the mold of a pop star. 

Hate isn't going to destroy Taylor's career as she's a wealthy, white women who has support from wealthy, white women as a consequence of what her marketing team thought it was a smart move (not pronouncing politically, lacking of a proper speech). Instead of keeping it neutral, she's on the road of losing all her minimally conscious casual fans. In order to be succesful in GP spaces, such as streaming, reowned pop icons are asked to keep an image of being politically quiet but not too politically quiet (f.ex: Beyoncé), while men can get away with whatever they want it to be (from Ed Sheeran apolitical statements to XXXTentacion extreme misoginy and abuse to Bruno Mars cultural appropiation).

Taylor Swift came from an era as big as 25 and Reputation is on a PRISM-level of success, maybe less. Only two of the singles managed to hit top 10, and both of them dissapeared quickly from charts, despite high budget record-breaking videos. The rest of the singles couldn't get away with a top 10, with Delicate not even getting a top 30, mostly because of her poor streaming figures. Root of the problem? Public image. The music isn't as bad as her haters make it seem (you have to use an excuse for not wanting to like a song, and directly rejecting it is more effective than getting into the morality of listening to an artist you don't sympathize with), in fact, I'd say it's on the level, or above, 1989 bombastic hits "Shake It Off" and "Bad Blood". 

In the end, T.Swift may not care about this but her record label does. Most of the money from the tour, Swift's huge income source, doesn't go to the record label. Making Taylor Swift become a social activist all of sudden would be contradictory and I'm sure T.Swift wouldn't do so for two reasons: she isn't passionate about it + doesn't want to alienate her white rich heterosexual casual fans. So, what can she do? Go back to her country pop niche, maybe to a sanitized version of RED kind of album, gather GRAMMYs, massive album sales and get free airplay from every country station.  

[Andrea B 16,460]

10 hours ago, Miracle said:

Taylor Swift came from an era as big as 25 and Reputation is on a PRISM-level of success, maybe less. Only two of the singles managed to hit top 10, and both of them disappeared quickly from charts, despite high budget record-breaking videos. The rest of the singles couldn't get away with a top 10, with Delicate not even getting a top 30, mostly because of her poor streaming figures. Root of the problem? Public image. The music isn't as bad as her haters make it seem (you have to use an excuse for not wanting to like a song, and directly rejecting it is more effective than getting into the morality of listening to an artist you don't sympathize with), in fact, I'd say it's on the level, or above, 1989 bombastic hits "Shake It Off" and "Bad Blood". 

In the end, T.Swift may not care about this but her record label does. Most of the money from the tour, Swift's huge income source, doesn't go to the record label. Making Taylor Swift become a social activist all of sudden would be contradictory and I'm sure T.Swift wouldn't do so for two reasons: she isn't passionate about it + doesn't want to alienate her white rich heterosexual casual fans. So, what can she do? Go back to her country-pop niche, maybe to a sanitized version of RED kind of album, gather GRAMMYs, massive album sales and get free airplay from every country station.  

 

2

I'm a swiftie and I agree with everything but people seem to think that LWYMMD fell quickly from the hot 100 when in fact, the song spent 2 months top 10 and it spent 20 weeks on the hot 100. LWYMMD is a smash hit, I agree that her singles tend to do better but idk why people think that LWYMMD didn't do well when it did great on Spotify, it smashed on Youtube and it went #1 on Itunes. LWYMMD only underperformed on radios and that's it. 

Taylor will go back to country-pop and its a smart move, she lost a lot of her fans when she dropped rep. 

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

15 hours ago, Supersonic said:

but what's the point of comparing data if you don't contextualize it, such as 1989 not being available on Spotify and album sales declining even more?

that doesn't account for a 2 million copy difference 

 

 

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

17 hours ago, doppelganger said:

Record sales have also reduced considerably due to streaming so it's not even a fair comparison. 

it's a three year difference. Record sales haven't declined that much

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

3 hours ago, Andree said:

I'm a swiftie and I agree with everything but people seem to think that LWYMMD fell quickly from the hot 100 when in fact, the song spent 2 months top 10 and it spent 20 weeks on the hot 100. LWYMMD is a smash hit, I agree that her singles tend to do better but idk why people think that LWYMMD didn't do well when it did great on Spotify, it smashed on Youtube and it went #1 on Itunes. LWYMMD only underperformed on radios and that's it. 

Taylor will go back to country-pop and its a smart move, she lost a lot of her fans when she dropped rep. 

 

I think the idea is that for a #1 song, only 8 weeks in the Top 10 and only 20 weeks on the Hot 100, is quite unusual. 

 

 

 

 

 

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

19 hours ago, Haroon said:

but I don't think Look What You Made Me Do was as successful as Shake It Off but then I don't know the actual numbers so might be wrong about that  

 

you're quite right 

 

Here's the difference in their performances on the Hot 100. 

Shake It Off (2014/2015) *24 weeks in Top 10*
1st Week: #1 - PEAK POSITION
2nd Week: #1
3rd Week: #2
4th Week: #2
5th Week: #2
6th Week: #2
7th Week: #2
8th Week: #2
9th Week: #2
10th Week: #2
11th Week: #1 
12th Week: #1
13th Week: #3
14th Week: #5
15th Week: #4
16th Week: #6
17th Week: #10
18th Week: #11
19th Week: #9
20th Week: #7
21st Week: #9
22nd Week: #5
23rd Week: #5
24th Week: #9
25th Week: #10
26th Week: #15
27th Week: #15
28th Week: #21
29th Week: #24
30th Week: #22
31st Week: #24
32nd Week: #24
33rd Week: #26
34th Week: #27
35th Week: #32
36th Week: #33
37th Week: #34
38th Week: #35
39th Week: #34
40th Week: #34
41st Week: #39
42nd Week: #38
43rd Week: #39
44th Week: #40
45th Week: #39
46th Week: #46
47th Week: #50
48th Week: #47
49th WeeK: #47
50th Week: #50
(Knocked Out)

 

 

Look What You Made Me Do (2017/2018) *8 weeks in Top 10*
1st Week: #77
2nd Week: #1 - PEAK POSITION
3rd Week: #1
4th Week: #1
5th Week: #3
6th Week: #3
7th Week: #5 
8th Week: #4
9th Week: #10
10th Week: #25
11th Week: #34 
12th Week: #37
13th Week: #31 
14th Week: #44
15th Week: #60
16th Week: #72
17th Week: #70
18th Week: #76
19th Week: #66
20th Week: #55
(knocked out)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Haroon 49,685]

1 hour ago, DiscoHeaven23 said:

you're quite right 

Here's the difference in their performances on the Hot 100. 

Shake It Off (2014/2015) *24 weeks in Top 10*
Look What You Made Me Do (2017/2018) *8 weeks in Top 10*

Oh wow there are quite significant differences  Thanks for these numbers  I'm not ignoring the week things by the way, I just didn't want to stretch the page by quoting all of the post

[jorgeropero 345]

if you take into account those sales figures for 2018 are like 4m