Taylor Swift Released A Best Selling Album That Not A Penny Past 1 Million People Cared About

We’re polarizing the music industry and that’s not okay

I’ve stated multiple times that Kanye West’s 2013 album Yeezus was a recording everyone would hear but nobody had to buy. Five years later, Taylor Swift’s Reputation is the album that only one million Taylor Swift fans had to buy and only that million Taylor Swift fans cared to pay full market price to hear. In realizing that this is a likely harbinger of things to come, it’s time to realize that we’re polarizing the music industry, and furthermore consider everything that means. A polarized music industry could be a wonderful thing. It could also be thoroughly terrifying. Ultimately, I don’t know what type of thing this forthcoming reality is quite yet, but it’s definitely a thing worth discussing.

While Taylor Swift was certainly effective in her gambit to direct market her album to her fanbase and likely her fanbase alone, she certainly wasn’t as efficient as she could have been at this gambit. The all-time efficiency champion will forever be Jay-Z, who partnering with Samsung, Sprint, and Tidal in…