Do you know that “fate of Ophelia” has logged 117 weeks at number one across the world? And then many more top ten and top 20 weeks also. That’s the type of hit one will need to get in these lists, going a few week at a handful country isn’t nearly enough
Yeah, the fact that Olivia made it to Top 5 and Sabrina hit Top 10 is crazy impressive. When you look at the data, I feel like the thing that sets Taylor apart is work ethic. She maintains strong showings by always having a new project waiting in the wings, whereas even the pop stars like Liv and Sabrina who are continuing to get bigger have years with literally no production.
Beyonce barely promotes her music. It’s actually a legitimate frustration amongst fans of hers that I’ve seen online. She could have had multiple legit hits or at least better performing music on the charts with her last few albums if she bothered to do more than just drop an album on release day and then immediately go quiet.
I was honestly quite surprised when the Post Malone song wasn't a bigger hit. That sounds exactly like what modern country fans would enjoy, even if they hate Beyoncé
The Weeknd never makes sense to me on these lists. I’ve never heard of anyone who says he’s their favorite and I don’t hear his songs out and about since can’t feel my face. Good job getting that bag at least.
Taylor beating out bad bunny with his global reach is huge tho. They’re both excellent 👏.
This is completely my opinion and not fact based whatsoever—but from what I’ve seen while The Weeknd may not be their favorite artist, I see him being played EVERYWHERE. He’s one of those artists that people love listening to but don’t go out of their way to listen to, it might be on a bunch of playlists and stations? Idk lol
The Weeknd is a playlist artist imo. I don’t ever listen to his full albums or speak about him but you’ll definitely find a couple of his songs on my playlist. He also really improves any song he features on
If you’re an album person, then you’re really sleeping on The Weeknd. I’m not sure of many pop artists whose storytelling spans multiple albums and different forms of media
I’ll get to him eventually😅 I don’t think I articulated myself correctly tho. The reason why I have only a couple of his songs in my playlist is because I generally have to be in the mood to listen to his music whereas with my favourite artists I’m always happy to listen to any song from any album. You made a good point tho, I’ll try and give more of his music a shot. I think I’ve only fully listened to Starboy
I’m one of these types of listeners. I love absorbing whole albums at a time. I’m personally not surprised The Weeknd is up there but I’m kinda surprised how many other people are. They are good!
Taylor is a workaholic. Between 2019 and 2025, she released at least an album a year. Between 2020 and 2024, she released at least two albums or one double album a year.
I am counting the re-records. Keep in mind they were double album sized and she released two of them in both 2021 and 2023, so basically she had four album's worth of releases each of those two years.
On top of that, all of the above was a hit. Even though she only released five new songs this year, two of the five went to #1 on the Hot 100, and two from last year's album also were #1 this year.
Doesn't sound like a good measure of popularity. Especially because billboard has all these strange rules and radio play has a lot more weight compared to streaming.
What that means is despite receiving only half of the points on “save your tears”, that song still was the best performing global single in Ariana’s career
A couple surprises here: Sabrina getting to top 10 with only two really big albums, BTS at 9 with many years of hiatus with their military services, no karol g despite her global reach feeling very similar to bad bunny's (on a smaller scale than him, but i'd think she'd be above Sabrina at least)
Whatever the mechanism tho, it is impressive that Swift doesn't crack the top 10 artists in 2020 or 2021 - not even the top 20 - and is only at number 5 in 2022. It's that 2023 tho. Monster year, with Midnights continuing to sell and Speak Now (TV) and 1989 (TV) coming out. Interestingly it's a year-on-year decline since then but still enough overall for her to top the decade.
With all the love in my heart this is not surprising in the least. Folklore and Evermore have aged well and are really beloved, but 2020 and 2021 were absolutely insane years for pop music with loads of highlights and hits from a myriad of artists. People for some reason are acting brand new about The Weekend here but he completely ruled 2020 along with Dua Lipa. If anything the fact that Taylor got her two albums to succeed along with everything else is what's surprising, it sounds crazy now but after Lover her career could have legitimately started to deflate. That 2023, the year of the Eras Tour, is the real win for her sounds perfectly logical.
The only re-release I can think of that did real numbers on the singles chart was ATW ten minute version. The re-releases sold albums, the singles didn’t hang around on the charts long. The hits that earned her the points for this chart were Cardigan, Anti-Hero, Fate of Ophelia and Cruel Summer mostly.
You can certainly say re-releases are included in these numbers but its a currently unprovable claim to say she wouldn't have hit the same without them.
Yall need to get together and work out that math for the next talking points memo
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u/Windstorm_ You're the best thing that's ever been mine. 3d ago
I’m more amazed that Sabrina made the list with just two years in the spotlight.
Also surprised that Beyonce & Chappell Roan aren’t here.