Streaming ruined the Billboard singles (*and albums) charts. It's all pointless now.

[Turner Coates]

Peter Frampton? That's hilarious. Garth can still sell out any arena in the United States at the drop of the hat, by 1982 Frampton was back in theaters. There's nothing similar there at all.

I was referring to the sales of "Frampton Comes Alive," which at the time was the biggest selling live album ever. Music execs and critics alike were raving about the feat.
Frampton's "importance" turned out to be a short lasting fluke.

[GreatWhiteSnake]

AI killed the customer service rep...

[Mister Freeze]

Frampton was a flash in the pan. One big album and that was it.

Taylor Swift has been at the top of the charts for more than twice as long as the Beatles existed. She is absolutely THE musical artist of her era.

Is she on the level of the Beatles? No. But nobody is. Yet she is ridiculously successful, managed to stay on top while consistently reinventing herself and occupies a certain place in the zeitgeist during a period when pop music isn't the shared experience it used to be. She also has an unusually strong connection with her fanbase that goes beyond the typical teenage obsessions.

And... she actually plays a guitar. Rare these days. You guys should at least appreciate that. Like her or not, she's a phenomenon.

[Turner Coates]

Frampton was a flash in the pan. One big album and that was it.

Taylor Swift has been at the top of the charts for more than twice as long as the Beatles existed. She is absolutely THE musical artist of her era.

Is she on the level of the Beatles? No. But nobody is. Yet she is ridiculously successful, managed to stay on top while consistently reinventing herself and occupies a certain place in the zeitgeist during a period when pop music isn't the shared experience it used to be. She also has an unusually strong connection with her fanbase that goes beyond the typical teenage obsessions.

And... she actually plays a guitar. Rare these days. You guys should at least appreciate that. Like her or not, she's a phenomenon.

My point is that the METHOD by which success is MEASURED has changed. It KEEPS changing. The yardstick will always grow exponentially larger.
Bigger does NOT mean better. It is subjective.
Hall and Oates may have sold more records than Simon and Garfunkel and the Everlys, but that does NOT make them more musically influential.
Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift (as of yet) are NOT as influential as the Beatles or Stones were.

[dmbrocker]

New T-Swift album taking up the top 11 spots on the chart. Just another excuse for you all to argue about the merits of Taylor vs. The Beatles: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/

[Rocker4Real]

Don't forget about Post Malone!

[str]

New T-Swift album taking up the top 11 spots on the chart. Just another excuse for you all to argue about the merits of Taylor vs. The Beatles: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/

Top 14 actually
and more after that,

I don't know why this makes sense to Billboard to keep counting this way ,

So many veteran artists make the top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart but are so much lower on the Billboard 200 and sometimes not even on it,
but those new albums seem popular enough when they first come out that their numbers should be Top 10 and not #150 or something like that,
Everybody's sales are low so it would be an even playing field today,
And if the pop artists who only sell (or stream) singles aren't high on the album chart it would be like the 50's or 60's with the Shangri-Las , etc. , that seems fair , it was that way before,
I wonder if it's pressure on them from major labels,
But why would they let their old artists have embarrassing numbers like #150 ?
They're not all on indies now , are they ?