Taylor Swift has set all kinds of records in her career, but today’s addition to that list is more focused on individual songs than any of her classic albums. According to Forbes, Taylor has sold more singles than any other artist in the US over the past decade. And yes, that includes Eminem. From 2010 to 2020, Swift sold a whopping 75,893,000 individual tracks, with Em coming in at a distant second around 63,501,000 — that’s about twelve million behind.
When the decade began, downloading new songs directly from iTunes was one of the biggest sale drivers for music, even bigger than getting a whole album. But as streaming began to take over, that metric certainly shifted. Still, Taylor managed to sell songs even during a time when most artists were almost exclusively being streamed. Of course, part of that may be due to the fact that she strategically withheld her music from streaming platforms at different times, and even wrote a letter to the massive operation at Apple Music, insisting they pay artists even during their infamous trial launch. Oh, and she won that battle, too.
Another factor? Quantity along with quality. With eighteen songs topping Billboard‘s Digital Songs Sales chart, and five No. 1 albums hitting the Billboard albums chart in the last decade, there’s been a lot of music available for fans. Here’s hoping the next decade is just as packed with releases.
