Order Female Country Singers in Order of Current Dominance

[corvus albus 38,031]

9 minutes ago, Mulholland said:

1. Kacey Musgraves

She's having A Moment. The Grammy noms. "Golden Hour" named best album of the year by most publications. Big tour with Harry Styles (and now a solo tour). It's more of a crossover era than a traditional country era, but you can't deny her power rn.

9 minutes ago, Mulholland said:

4. Carrie Underwood

She still does decent numbers, but it feels like it's been a while since she's had a legitimate smash song or album. I might be wrong there, but it definitely feels like she has fallen from the height of her powers, critically and commercially. And musically she leans a bit too far into adult contemporary schmaltz for me.

I don't know in what world you live but certainly not it this one

Cry Pretty, Carries latest album, outsold every debut figure of every Kacey Musgraves album combined (266.000 copies vs 155.000 copies). Kacey hasn't managed to get a certified album since her first album while Cry Pretty even sold better than ASIB OST in its first week (231.000 copies).

I think your personal bias is a huge factor here 

[Thomas P 18,469]

My order:

1. Miranda Lambert 

2. Kacey Musgraves

3. Taylor Swift (country days had some of my favourite music EVER)

4. Brandi Carlil 

5. Carrie underwood

6. Marren Moris

 

Edit: oh...I thought it was personal preference 

[Mulholland 1,052]

1 minute ago, corvus albus said:

I don't know in what world you live but certainly not it this one

Cry Pretty, Carries latest album, outsold every debut figure of every Kacey Musgraves album combined (266.000 copies vs 155.000 copies). Kacey hasn't managed to get a certified album since her first album while Cry Pretty even sold better than ASIB OST in its first week (231.000 copies).

I think your personal bias is a huge factor here 

The difference is that Carrie, whose career spawned from American Idol and who used to sell millions upon millions of albums, is selling 266,000 total copies (most of which are tour bundles) now. The singles haven't really taken off, the album reviews were somewhat tepid. Kacey is still rising and has had the biggest year of her career so far. The same is not true for Carrie.

And critical acclaim/awards/influence are as much a factor of dominance as sales, especially in a climate when sales are kind of irrelevant.

[corvus albus 38,031]

14 minutes ago, Mulholland said:

The difference is that Carrie, whose career spawned from American Idol and who used to sell millions upon millions of albums, is selling 266,000 total copies (most of which are tour bundles) now. The singles haven't really taken off, the album reviews were somewhat tepid. Kacey is still rising and has had the biggest year of her career so far. The same is not true for Carrie.

And critical acclaim/awards/influence are as much a factor of dominance as sales, especially in a climate when sales are kind of irrelevant.

Storyteller, the album before Cry Pretty debuted with 177,000 copies so this is actually a huge improvement  

Also, who the hell claims that sales are irrelevant? I'm sure Kacey can't sustain herself with Grammys. Cry Pretty actually has a higher Metacritic score than Joanne. It's about industry dominance. Would you argue that Kacey Musgraves is bigger than Migos just because she has more accolades? Carrie can go Gold in 39 days with her album and Kacey had to wait for her 2013 album until April 2018 to be certified Platinum. She didn't even go gold with any of her other albums and even the highly acclaimed Golden Hour hasn't even reached pure sales of 150.000 copies (Carries way later released album without any Grammy nominations stands at about  400.000 pure copies).

Also, let's be honest Golden Hour isn't really album of the year material, not even in Country because there are several better albums if you would just look for them. 

[Runway 27,876]

43 minutes ago, corvus albus said:

I don't know in what world you live but certainly not it this one

Cry Pretty, Carries latest album, outsold every debut figure of every Kacey Musgraves album combined (266.000 copies vs 155.000 copies). Kacey hasn't managed to get a certified album since her first album while Cry Pretty even sold better than ASIB OST in its first week (231.000 copies).

I think your personal bias is a huge factor here 

Tour bundles

[corvus albus 38,031]

5 minutes ago, Runway said:

Tour bundles

Someone still needs to go to her show though. And if she can sellout Arena's that still proves my point. If someone is big enough to sell out Arenas you can consider them a very huge force 

[Mulholland 1,052]

Just now, corvus albus said:

Storyteller, the album before Cry Pretty debuted with 177,000 copies so this is actually a huge improvement  

Also, who the hell claims that sales are irrelevant? I'm sure Kacey can't sustain herself with Grammys. Cry Pretty actually has a higher Metacritic score than Joanne. It's about industry dominance. Would you argue that Kacey Musgraves is bigger than Migos just because she has more accolades? Carrie can go Gold in 39 days with her album and Kacey had to wait for her 2013 album until April 2018 to be certified Platinum. She didn't even go gold with any of her other albums and even the highly acclaimed Golden Hour hasn't even reached pure sales of 150.000 copies (Carries way later released album without any Grammy nominations stands at about  400.000 pure copies).

Also, let's be honest Golden Hour isn't really album of the year material, not even in Country because there are several better albums if you would just look for them. 

Sales are not irrelevant... except in the ways in which they are. As we all know. Streaming is king. (I'm not doing the math, but the Spotify streams for GH vs. CP are fairly close, and GH may actually have more, which is impressive considering Carrie is a more established name.) Buzz and acclaim can make a star as much as an album that moves a million copies. (Pink sold like a million copies of her most recent album, but literally nobody cares. It has no impact, no influence, no buzz. No one talks about it, and no one talks about Cry Pretty. A year later, though, and Golden Hour has an AOTY nod, and not everybody has that. Older artists, especially ones who peaked during the heyday of iTunes and digital sales, will always have that built-in fanbase, but for an artist as big as Carrie, she has to reach beyond that to earn the numbers.)

And more to the point, Carrie going gold in 39 days (or period) is not that impressive when she used to easily go multiplatinum. Part of "dominance" is looking at the numbers compared to the artist's history. It's why everyone is so excited about ASIB's performance. It's not going to outsell The Fame or even Reputation or Lemonade (in pure), but it's doing better than all Gaga albums since BTW. The excitement comes from the cultural impact, the improvement on the previous project's numbers, the critical acclaim, the award nominations, the award wins, the internet buzz, the new fans won, etc.

(And yes, Cry Pretty has a SLIGHTLY better MC score than Joanne, though Joanne has a lot more reviews counted. Also, Joanne was reviewed pretty tepidly! 67 is not an amazing score!)

I am not even that enamored with Golden Hour, if I am being completely honest. Pageant Material is for sure a better album, and Same Trailer probably is too. However, my personal opinion on that doesn't outweigh the universal acclaim the album received throughout all of 2018. But I am happy Kacey is receiving this kind of acclaim, even for an album I don't love as much as a lot of other people, because she is super talented and deserves to be really big.

Anyway, my point ultimately boils down to... Everyone was talking about Kacey last year in a way they were not with Carrie. Carrie may have sold a little more, but again, most of those sales are ticket bundles, which is fair, but also not the same as actually, you know, selling an album. It's not really Carrie shade! It just is what it is. It was a huge year for Kacey in context, it was a... fine year... for Carrie in context

[Runway 27,876]

Just now, corvus albus said:

Someone still needs to go to her show though. And if she can sellout Arena's that still proves my point. If someone is big enough to sell out Arenas you can consider them a very huge force 

Yes she has touring demand but that doesn't mean she has demand for her albums, which is why it free fell after week 1

[corvus albus 38,031]

4 minutes ago, Runway said:

Yes she has touring demand but that doesn't mean she has demand for her albums, which is why it free fell after week 1

Yes, it dropped to #7 the following week. Such a drastic flop. It flopped so hard hat it is #38 last week on Billboard 200.

[corvus albus 38,031]

7 minutes ago, Mulholland said:

And more to the point, Carrie going gold in 39 days (or period) is not that impressive when she used to easily go multiplatinum. Part of "dominance" is looking at the numbers compared to the artist's history. It's why everyone is so excited about ASIB's performance. It's not going to outsell The Fame or even Reputation or Lemonade (in pure), but it's doing better than all Gaga albums since BTW. The excitement comes from the cultural impact, the improvement on the previous project's numbers, the critical acclaim, the award nominations, the award wins, the internet buzz, the new fans won, etc.

Dominance is simply being bigger than everyone else and Carrie definitely is bigger right now than any other female Country star. Also comparing an album that is 5 months older on a streaming platform is a bit wonky. Let's compare the biggest tracks of the album to determine the dominance in that sector(not counting The Champion).

Kacey's biggest song: Butterflies with 20.6 mil streams (released 23rd February 2018)

Carries biggest: Cry Pretty 24.6 mil streams (released 11th April 2018)

Dominance is simply stomping the competition into the ground and Carrie does that since 2005. She's been the biggest female Country artists for nearly 15 years. Just looking that the Country Year End Artists charts for 2018 Carrie sits at #13, the only woman in the top 20. Kacey sits at #43, two spots behind Miranda Lambert who didn't even put out a solo project this year. Album Year End: Carrie at #10 and Kacey at #34 behind Hero by Maren Morris at #32, an album nearly two years older than Golden Hour. You can't speak from Dominance from Kacey. I like her but saying that she dominated the last years is just delusional. Because we were supposed to look over the last years not just 2018.

[Mulholland 1,052]

14 minutes ago, corvus albus said:

Dominance is simply being bigger than everyone else and Carrie definitely is bigger right now than any other female Country star. Also comparing an album that is 5 months older on a streaming platform is a bit wonky. Let's compare the biggest tracks of the album to determine the dominance in that sector(not counting The Champion).

Kacey's biggest song: Butterflies with 20.6 mil streams (released 23rd February 2018)

Carries biggest: Cry Pretty 24.6 mil streams (released 11th April 2018)

Dominance is simply stomping the competition into the ground and Carrie does that since 2005. She's been the biggest female Country artists for nearly 15 years. Just looking that the Country Year End Artists charts for 2018 Carrie sits at #13, the only woman in the top 20. Kacey sits at #43, two spots behind Miranda Lambert who didn't even put out a solo project this year. Album Year End: Carrie at #10 and Kacey at #34 behind Hero by Maren Morris at #32, an album nearly two years older than Golden Hour. You can't speak from Dominance from Kacey. I like her but saying that she dominated the last years is just delusional. Because we were supposed to look over the last years not just 2018.

I think, at the end of the day, you and I have different ideas and opinions of what dominance means and all the factors that contribute to it. I don’t think either of us are wrong, we are just talking about different factors and contexts.

Carrie is riding off, like, 15 years and a peak in the digital era. Kacey is still an up and comer. Kacey has the biggest year of her career, that’s why I put her first, even though personally Miranda, Maren, and Cam >>>

as for streams, like I said, I didn’t really do the math, but Kacey appears to have stronger streams overall for the album? A lot of tracks above 6 million, and almost her entire top 10 on Spotify is GH. Carrie’s album track streams look kinda low (like Liberation low...) and her top 10 is mostly older stuff. 

 

 

[corvus albus 38,031]

2 minutes ago, Mulholland said:

I think, at the end of the day, you and I have different ideas and opinions of what dominance means and all the factors that contribute to it. I don’t think either of us are wrong, we are just talking about different factors and contexts.

Cambridge Dictionary Dominance:

the situation in which one company, product, etc. has more power, influence, or success than others. Critical success is nowhere near as important as success sales wide. Would you say with a straight face that Arcade Fire was more successful than Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum and Eminem in 2011 just because they won the Grammy for album of the year?

2 minutes ago, Mulholland said:

Carrie is riding off, like, 15 years and a peak in the digital era. Kacey is still an up and comer. Kacey has the biggest year of her career, that’s why I put her first, even though personally Miranda, Maren, and Cam >>>

But even if it is her biggest year Carrie is outdoing her in everything but critical acclaim. Also like I already said, we were supposed to look at several years, not just 2018.

4 minutes ago, Mulholland said:

as for streams, like I said, I didn’t really do the math, but Kacey appears to have stronger streams overall for the album? A lot of tracks above 6 million, and almost her entire top 10 on Spotify is GH. Carrie’s album track streams look kinda low (like Liberation low...) and her top 10 is mostly older stuff. 

But Golden Hour is still 5 months older than Cry Pretty. We can talk about streaming again in 5 months. Currently, Kacey has 2.3 mil listeners while Carrie has 3.8 mil. I guess that is also telling.

[Mulholland 1,052]

14 minutes ago, corvus albus said:

Cambridge Dictionary Dominance:

the situation in which one company, product, etc. has more power, influence, or success than others. Critical success is nowhere near as important as success sales wide. Would you say with a straight face that Arcade Fire was more successful than Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum and Eminem in 2011 just because they won the Grammy for album of the year?

But even if it is her biggest year Carrie is outdoing her in everything but critical acclaim. Also like I already said, we were supposed to look at several years, not just 2018.

But Golden Hour is still 5 months older than Cry Pretty. We can talk about streaming again in 5 months. Currently, Kacey has 2.3 mil listeners while Carrie has 3.8 mil. I guess that is also telling.

Carrie’s album having a more recent release date than Kacey’s isn’t helping your point. Since it’s newer, more people should be streaming it, and yet her top tracks are mostly from older albums. We’ll see if she catches up, but I kinda doubt it. And even if she does, for Carrie, that’s a low bar to clear. Which means if she doesn’t clear it.... 

i would hope Carrie has more overall Spotify listeners! She’s been at this a helluva lot longer than Kacey! That gap is closing tho...

I love that you copied and pasted part of a dictionary definition (always a sign of someone losing the thread) which clearly states multiple factors (including power and influence, which GH has and CP does not) as relevant to success, which is literally the my point. So thanks? People will cite GH as an influence in experimental country-pop for years, and Kacey will continue growing in popularity. Carrie will... continue to decline. 

[DeleteMyAccount 11,881]

Kacey Musgraves

Maren Morris 

Carrie Underwood

Kelsea Ballerini 

Miranda Lambert

Cam

First off, I'm a huge Carrie fan. I've seen her 6 times in concert. Going again for the Cry Pretty Tour. However, just in terms of relevance at this moment, Kacey is who all the girls and gays are talking about right now. Just imagine if she were to release a pop leaning album for the next era. Add her relevancy to her current success and Grammy nods, there's no way to not put her at #1. 

As with Carrie, idk. I thought Cry Pretty was going to be a turnaround for her. Maybe it's because she had a baby this past week or that her new label is screwing her over.. I just feel like her team is relying on the same promo and campaigns that she was doing 10 years ago. Because she is my fav I'm going to be a bit more critical. Carrie's relevancy has dwindled with the past few album cycles. I blame that on her label as well as career decisions regarding her singles and whatnot(ie. Storyteller singles receiving piss poor videos....). Spinning Bottles at the AMAs?!?! Like really? Idk, I just wish Carrie would do some type of The Middle collab to put her in the spotlight again. I remember when T-Pain of all people wanted to collab with her. There's a lot that I can say.

It's also crazy that her team couldn't even get Cry Pretty(her lead single) to the top of the country charts. Especially for someone who has had a crazy amount of success on the country charts. Yes Carrie is still getting #1 albums(with tour bundles), but that's purely off of her fanbase and not the GP. I've also noticed that Carrie's likability is terrible. Every single time she's on a talk show or doing an interview people are always turned off(#1 being that the only thing people remember about her from last year was her injury.). She's not exciting enough right now. She's not giving people a reason to cheer for her.

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

Top Female Country Albums each year according to Billboard (based on data, not opinion) *post Taylor Swift*:

 

2018 - Cry Pretty (Carrie Underwood)

2017 - The Weight of These Wings (Miranda Lambert)

2016 - Storyteller - (Carrie Underwood)

2015 - Greatest Hits: Decade #1 (Carrie Underwood)

2014 - Platinum (Miranda Lambert)