Taylor Swift Stands Among The Greats of Past and Present

Love her or hate her, there’s no doubt that Taylor Swift has a pretty serious reach: in the past, she’s prompted a jump in U.S. voter registration, she’s thought to have directly impacted local economies with ‘tourflation’ and has sold out millions of tickets in her latest ‘Eras’ tour across five continents. She’s made especially big waves this year, with her new concert movie having already brought in record revenue in pre-sale tickets before its debut weekend.

The following chart shows how Swift has now become one of the most successful female artists in terms of both album sales and digital single sales. Data from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) highlights how in terms of album sales, Swift ranks fifth out of all female artists whose music is consumed in the U.S., behind that of musical Greats such as Mariah Carey and Madonna. In terms of digital single sales, which tends to lean towards musicians who have released the bulk of their music more recently, Swift ranks only second after Rihanna. Given the popularity of streaming, RIAA began including streaming equivalents in its calculation of digital single sales in 2013 and for albums in 2016.