Swift and The Beatles now share a remarkable Billboard milestone. But comparing chart success across six decades is far from straightforward
I think I like more songs by Taylor Swift than I do by the Beatles. I’m not a Swiftie; nor am I a Beatles fan. I do think the Beatles are culturally more significant, but I’m Gen X. They were my generation’s band (older Gen X though). “Hate all you like because I like what I like.” Or something like that.
I wouldn’t want to hear the Beatles attempt something like “Opalite” or “Ruin the Friendship” — yeah, I pretty much just like “The Life of a Showgirl” (and her older stuff — again, I’m not really a fan) but I also don’t think Taylor Swift has the range to do a lot of what the Beatles did.
And I think that’s fine. Neither of them can really do Metallica either, nor should we judge them for it, or judge a fish for not being able to climb a tree.
I still don’t understand what people find good in Swift’s music
It’s interesting – Mr Watts clearly wants to say “no” but mostly can only come up with “there’s not really a good way to objectively compare,” which is surprising because, in music history terms, the time between the Beatles and Taylor is pretty short. More than anything, I think we’ve had enough time since the Beatles were active for their cultural influence to seep into literally everything, and it will be a lot easier to compare once we’ve seen whether Swift’s oeuvre has the same cultural relevance down the road
To reach No 1 in the 1960s, The Beatles had to sell hundreds of thousands of copies each week. Records such as Meet The Beatles! and A Hard Day’s Night sold more than a million copies within weeks of release, illustrating the very different commercial environment in which The Beatles operated. For obvious reasons, no artist today sells in anything approaching those numbers, making like-for-like sales irrelevant. Instead the Billboard 200 is nowadays calculated by a complex system that begins with physical album sales and then adds what is called track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA) – 10 downloaded song sales, or 2,500 ad-supported and 1,000 paid/subscription audio/video streams are considered the equivalent of one physical album purchase.
I think The Beatles really reached peoples hearts because they all were working class, like the bulk of their global audience.
By extension, you think a working class Taylor Swift would have been more successful?
Not today. But in the 60s, if she had enough talent, why not?
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