Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department (April 19, 2024) Album • Page 102

If Taylor keeps releasing albums every few months, touring like crazy, I think that’s great for her fans, and no one but her peers would mind that.

She’s over saturating everything though with the multiple variants, random bonus tracks, etc every week, and no one’s asking for all those. I just wish she’d cool it on all of that stuff. If she wants to put out 4 different versions of the album out of the gates, sure. But leave it at that so we can all just chill and actually spend time with and enjoy the album she’s put out.

The constant merch drops, new bonus tracks, etc etc etc is just too much.

 

It’s crazy how fragmented everything is now. I hear nonstop about Taylor and the only exposure I’ve had to Morgan Wallen is a song that plays on my work radio station that I 100% wouldn’t have heard had I not worked there, but the numbers he pulls are insane. I don’t get it

 

I live in Morgan Wallen's home town and still hear more about Taylor. That's my main indicator that she is in fact, bigger than Morgan Wallen. But also, he's got more male fans. So that could skew all sorts of things. She's not a strictly female fan artist by any means, but the perception is "she's for the girlies" and Morgan makes music for the mediocre white men of America.

That being said, he's a pretty terrible person, but some of his music is on the upper end of "pop country" quality so I definitely get why he's as popular as he is.

 

I don't think I've even heard a single Morgan Wallen song. I feel like I hear Noah Kahan on the radio just about as often as Taylor.

 

You can’t get the kind of numbers he was getting (and still is getting) on his albums just off the strength of the singles. The reason he’s as big as he is is that he was really the first country artist to be a huge streaming sensation. For so long, country fans listened to country radio and bought CDs but didn’t really do much streaming. Wallen ushered in a new era, and I can absolutely assure you that his fans are still streaming those albums in full. (The explosion of streaming in country is also just why that genre had such a big 2023, and why artists like Zach Bryan are suddenly chart toppers.)

It’s not great for her fans that think they need to buy everything to be good fans, lol. Those people aren’t going to have any money soon!

 

Wallen's album is going to do like 75k THIS WEEK. It came out last March. That's not a show of support for singles, that's a sign that his fans are going back to that album again and again. For all the we seem to be in agreement that Wallen sucks, that's super impressive, and I think it says something about how country fans live with albums in a way that pop fans no longer do. So much of music discourse right now is "on to the next thing," but those big albums in the country world really have staying power as albums. I started noticing this trend 8-9 years ago when Chris Stapleton's Traveller just hung around in the top 10 forever, and it still seems to be holding true even as country fans migrate to streaming.

So, if she wants to make a big fucking splash that lasts and lasts, maybe it's time for Taylor to make that return to country album.

 

Exactly. They aren't going to have any money soon to buy new Taylor stuff, let alone anything by anyone else they're fans of. It's just unnecessary. No one needs 50 random remixes or live versions of songs.

 

Especially half-assed alternate versions of songs. "Acoustic version with the same vocal track as the original" is not what anyone is looking for.

 

Isn’t the easy answer because it sold four times as much the first week?

 

This makes no sense to me. It’s people’s job to work albums and they’ve been doing it for decades? Streaming changed what that job is and some of the tactics used, but it’s the same old bundling and discount pricing and end caps and all the previous tricks/skills the marketing teams have been doing since the 60s.

 

As in, it burned hard and bright for a shorter period of time? I guess, but I think there’s still something interesting about the album that was way bigger upfront having less staying power.

 

I think part of it is people who only listen to country really only listen to country while most Swifties have diverse tastes in music

 

Or we’re not as good at capturing “staying power.” More early physical sales could just = less streaming as people play their bought physical albums.

 

Cannot stand Wallen overall, but this is spot on. It's super impressive how long his record has pulled numbers. Also to your point, I have a few friends that are big country fans and they consistently tell me that they love records, not just singles or a compilation of songs thrown together.

It would be absolutely wild for Taylor to make a full circle back to make a country album but man I'd have to think that would do really well overall and - assuming she puts out quality stuff as usual - it would likely have some serious staying power.

 

My mom’s phone background is a picture of Morgan Wallen :(

 

I suspect that part of the comparative drop off is that the Taylor Swift fans are (also?) listening to one or more of the ten other Taylor Swift albums (many of which are better) instead of TTPD, whereas Morgan Wallen fans can only listen to one of three Morgan Wallen albums when they want to listen to him.

 

Another example of why the site needs a dislike button.

 

I graphed this.



I would still make the argument Artist 1 is inarguably still bigger and that front loading album sales with fewer sales on the long tail only shifts where the sales happen. If an album has X album sales in it over a lifetime, where they occur is probably not material.

 

Also her tour alone proves she stands alone in the industry

 

Worst thing about the streaming age: Morgan Wallen is huge

Best thing about the streaming age: I've avoided hearing a single Morgan Wallen song

 

now that the only driving i do is in my own car and i'm never without bluetooth i haven't listened to the radio in probably > a year and a half. it's great.

 

Idk most of the people I know who listen to Taylor Swift only listen to Taylor Swift lol. It’s taken on its own genre.

 

Where I work we have an online radio and they play Morgan Wallen all the time. We also used to have a regular ass radio and they'd play Wallen all the time too.

 

Yup my mom and sisters listen to Taylor 95% of the time and newly Sabrina Carpenter for the other 5% lol

 

Tell them they need more espresso