Arckangel

Even when Madonna was younger than Taylor Swift, she was not winning as many awards. Taylor Swift just rakes everything in year after year after year. Does this mean that things are overhyped these days? Or maybe the industry sees Taylor Swift as that brilliantly talented. Or maybe Taylor has the bestest connections!

Something is strange, though. As @nito84bcn mentioned in another thread, when Madonna was Taylor Swift's age and years before she was her age, she was not cumulating as many awards...

This is not an anti-Taylor Swift thread. And we all know Taylor Swift and Madonna are two different and very unique artists. This is just a question... A very honest, brutally honest question. Has Taylor Swift surpassed Madonna all-around? 1. In terms of social and pop culture impact. First, it was Paula Abdul; she started outselling Madonna in the United States. And for a brief period, Britney Spears seemed to be on her way to supplant Madonna... Until the kiss. And then it was Lady Gaga. And not so long afterwards, Taylor Swift ended up outselling and surpassing Lady Gaga. According to Elton John, Taylor Swift is a great songwriter, great artist, the biggest phenomenon since The Beatles. (And you know he'd never say that about Madonna! He even threw a fit when Madonna beat him for best songwriter at the Golden Globes.) 2. In terms of peak longevity... It seems like Taylor Swift's peak just never ends! From that 2009 VMAs moment (essentially her consecration and initiation) during which Kanye West interrupted her to her many wins last night at the 2024 VMAs, some would argue that her peak is outlasting Madonna's (though Madonna has had many peaks and highlights during her career). 3. In terms of artistry, mainly songwriting. Madonna is the author and producer (usually executive producer and co-song producer) of the vast majority of her catalogue. Madonna is also oftentimes the vocal melodist and/or co-composer. Madonna has some sole songwriting credits, and she plays the guitar. Taylor Swift and Madonna seem equal on those fronts, but many are under the impression Taylor Swift is more of a songwriter (a singer-songwriter as opposed to a singer and songwriter) and more of a guitarist. Heck, Taylor Swift was recently voted the eighth best guitarist of the last two decades! 4. In terms of youth appeal. Taylor Swift is now 34 years old and still appeals a lot to youngsters. At age 34, Madonna was singing "Erotica," "Deeper and Deeper," "Fever," "Bad Girl" & "Rain" and was perhaps seen as more adult contemporary. And as soon as she hit 35 and went on her Girlie Show Tour, some media already started calling her "old" and "grandma." _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note: I must admit that the fame of Taylor Swift, esp. in this digital era, is unprecedented! I sometimes read that the era of big legendary megastars is over, but this doesn't seem to be the case of Taylor Swift.

@Prayer Thx for the information. That said, I still find it odd on their part. The rights holders of a CD music album or single can legally upload and market the contents of said CD, and it's not like Madonna or any other one of the rights holders would have objected to CD files being used instead of digitalized master files if some of the latter were missing (and I'm sure Warner was authorized anyway). The only objection to using CD files is if the CD is damaged or maybe too old, which could compromise the sound quality (even if the tracks don't skip). And in Warner's case, they could easily and instantly have obtained new or like-new CD albums with the missing digitized masters (besides, those CDs were printed millions of times). All they had to do in that case was rip the WAVE files straight from the CDs. It would have been better than what was done instead because of some technicality.

Some of those errors are intentional. When uploading Madonna, they took care to create a shorter edit of the Q-Sound Mix of "Holiday" to use instead of the original. And when uploading The Immaculate Collection, they discarded the Q-Sound Mixes of "Lucky Star" and "Borderline" and used longer and older mixes instead. And I read the version of "Crazy for You" available on the digital Something to Remember is different than the CD one. In all cases, it would have been easier to upload the tracks as they appeared on those CDs instead of making the extra effort of discarding certain versions and replacing them.

But why such errors in the first place? Some of those were obviously intentional.

That can't have been random, and I wonder who had that idea. They should replace that edit with the original album/12" version of "Holiday." All the streams of that edit would count towards the original album version and perhaps also the Celebration version. Or they could have that edit (Q-Sound Mix Edit) as a bonus track on the digital "Holiday" single (whenever they release it). As for the playlists that list the edit, the playlisters could always opt for the version available on The Immaculate Collection or Finally Enough Love. They should also fix "Lucky Star" and "Borderline" on The Immaculate Collection and replace them with the Q-sound mixes, and also fix "Crazy for You" on Something to Remember (apparently, the digital upload is not the same as the original CD version). And they need to fix several more mistakes as well: erroneous or superfluous song subtitles on The Immaculate Collection ("Crazy for You," "Into the Groove," "La Isla Bonita"), erroneous song subtitle on I'm Breathless ("Vogue"), duplicate track (was that fixed yet?) on the "Deeper and Deeper" EP, missing subtitles and erroneous first track on the "Borderline" single, and maybe a few more.

Madonna still currently has over 40M monthly listeners on Spotify, and that's a lot due to Popular (that now has over 900M streams). Years ago, Madonna had around 20M monthly listeners. I knew that a great, well-promoted collab could up her numbers. Y'all cannot deny the immense power of The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and other such megastars. As for Rihanna, she hasn't released much these past years but is currently number 6 in the world w/ over 84M monthly listeners, which is quite impressive. Maybe she should have Madonna on her comeback single if there is ever one.