It's not comparable at all. 2011 vs. 2014 wtf Taylor has 2 new albums after that time.

The main limitation of US success is that America will ditch artists/genres and move on to the next big thing.

Everybody in the industry know the importance of grabbing Europe, where music of different decades can co-exist, just like architecture of different centuries can be seen in the streets (unlike American cities looking the same because of their grid layout, steel and concrete).

That's why hard rock and heavy metal is kept alive by stadium size festival crowds in Europe 20 years after the American expiration date. Madonna figured out that Europe kept her career alive. Beyonce, P!nk, Rihanna,... are established because of having conquered Europe.

Taylor is going poppier because she wants Europe too and pop history tells her that American success can't last long. Katy has the same problem (although she has the Anglosphere) and is upgrading to non-English speaking European arenas.

The US can give big receipts short term, but Europe is about decades.

She's not really local, but she isn't as big as Katy, Rihanna, Gaga, etc. outside the US

Still pretty non-existing in non-English speaking Europe. Maybe she starts an Ellie Goulding size tour next year.

When will you Europeans realize that artists don't have to be successful in your largely irrelevant continent to be successful worldwide? I mean. The self-centeredness is off the charts.

I have a very serious question for you

Do you think Europe is the only continent that exists outside the US? Like serious question

"She's not big here in Europe, she's local!!!!!!!!!! idc about Asia, SA, or Africa, she's local!!!"

Why are you guys acting like she is slaying South America and Asia?

I thought we all agreed that she isn't local? Her ww numbers are especially amazing considering she's a predominately country artist.

Taylor was only local during her first era
Fearless and Red sold 2 million copies outside the U.S., the same amount Rihanna has sold with some of her albums. Are you guys gonna say Rihanna is local now?

You're crazy if you think Shake It Off is more global than "Diamonds" and "Timber". You forgot how the points work for Meditraffic. She's selling over 300K copies alone in the US that alone is enough for her to go #1. Those Asian acts go #1 on the WW chart all the time but are they global? No.

Ive never thought about it in this way, thank you for the post, gave me a lot.

still getting muh kii's from this.

I'm def not saying SIO is more global than them, I know that Diamonds and Timber did better WW overall.

But Taylor certainly isn't local if she can peak on the iTunes charts for a longer time than both of those songs.

The Lord is no longer local.
she's huge now WW.

Educate the uneducated

Idk about south america, but are you acting like she's not slaying in Asia? She's bigger than a lot of pop girls in China, Japan and south east Asia

Pretty arrogant.
I wanna borrow your explanation:When will you realize that artists don't have to be successful only in english speaking countries to be considered WW phoenomena??
WW doesn't mean America.Europe exists and music is a thriving business here.You can either deal with it or deny the evidence.

Who is talking about mediatraffic? Off topic

THIS, and i'm european, the only relevant countries are the US and germany
maybe 1-2 more and that's all