Wife says Tay, I say the material girl. Madge changed the game, became a fashion and LGBTQ icon, pushed sexual, cultural and religious boundaries, took serious risks and produced more than a double album’s worth of greatest hits bangers.
Taylor stayed mostly in her lane, played it safe, and played the music game it better than anyone before her. I think she is musically and economically on par with Madonna (better in some ways) but as an artist and thus cultural icon, she pales in comparison.
x3. Madonna branched off into acting and was in some movies that earned some critical acclaim-- like Evita, Desperately Seeking Susan and A League of Their Own. She made some shitty movies too, but she had a acting career.
It’s Madonna from a cultural perspective, but Swift has some additional aspects to her career you haven’t mentioned.
The crossover from country to pop was a big deal when she was starting to do it. She’s also had a lot of impact on social media interaction from major artists, and seemingly significant impact on how the music business views artist rights for publishing, streaming, etc. She’s almost her own music industry in and of herself, in a way Madonna probably never was.
So far Madonna, but I don’t think the Taylor Swift story has played out yet. She has the audience and the influence to affect real political change if she decides to take that path. As her fans mature she could conceivably turn them into a political force.
Taylor made football fans out of several million pre and early teen girls. That has to be something. I made the mistake of asking my friend if her granddaughter was a Swifty. She looked at me like “are you stupid”? Then added " all 12 year olds are Swifties." What the hell do I know?
I doubt many outside of US really cares about Madonna. Swift is BIG globally, this alone makes her the winner and she’s young, has (apparently) decent character…other than hanging with Mahome’s wife.
This is a significant point relative to the question. It certainly matters when the most popular artist in the most popular genre of music ties in the most popular player on the most popular team in the country’s most popular sport. That’s beyonce/jlo aspirations x 1,000.
Like I said I don’t know a single Taylor song, but I see her as dug in as Madonna with the kids. Different time different kids, but she has some power and from what I have read she treats her staff very well.
Madonna feels like Seinfeld to me. So much of what we see today in music began with Madonna, in the way that Seinfeld started a lot of television trends.
I don’t think we’ve had enough time to really judge whether the same will happen with Taylor.
T-Swift seems to have created a world of girls and women who see themselves in her songs, and who have some sort of sisterhood among the, what, hundreds of millions of other female swifities? So I think that counts for something, as a cultural phenomenon. I’m thinking of reports from guys who would go to her concerts on the last tour talking about how empty the men’s rooms were at the stadiums…
Not sure if that gives her a bigger impact than Madonna, btw, just that that’s how I think of Swift’s impact.
I’m of the age I remember Madonna in her early years, she was more than a music and fashion icon, I remember he being a beacon for women and feminism. Kind of the original “Girl Power” movement for my generation.
I think some of Taylor’s success is due to Madonna’s efforts throughout the 80’s and early 90’s. At least until Madonna seemed to go off a deep end.