How Big Is Taylor Swift? How Big Is Taylor Swift? As big as the Beatles? Michael Jackson? Beyoncé? We crunched the numbers.

You might have heard: Taylor Swift cannot be stopped.

Her new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” sold 2.6 million copies in its opening week last month, earning Swift her eighth Billboard No. 1 album since 2020.

At the Grammy Awards in February, she became the first artist to win album of the year for a fourth time, breaking a tie with Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon.

And earlier this month, Swift’s Eras Tour, the 152-date, billion-dollar stadium takeover that began last year, resumed abroad before it returns to the U.S. in October.

Taylor Swift onstage at an Eras Tour show in New Jersey last year.

In 2023, according to the data tracking service Luminate, one in every 78 songs streamed in the U.S. was by Swift.

With a mix of prolific artistic output and relentless business savvy, plus cultural dominance as a celebrity, Swift, 34, has created such a swell of momentum that she is probably more popular — more omnipresent — 19 years into her professional music career than she ever has been.

That is not normal.

Swift fans in the parking lot of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

But just how big is Taylor Swift, in terms of the all-time pop pantheon?

The singer’s ongoing surge has inspired inevitable debates about how her success stacks up not only against her pop peers, like Beyoncé and Drake, but to the greats that came before them. Even Billy Joel said he could only compare this Swift moment to Beatlemania.

Enraptured Beatles fans in 1964.

It may be impossible to do an exact, one-to-one comparison between Swift’s career and that of the Beatles — or Madonna, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John or your icon of choice. Besides music being personal and subjective, the nature of success (and how it is calculated) has changed drastically over time. Much of a star’s grip on the zeitgeist is also intangible — a vibe in the air, their influence moving subtly but undeniably through culture.

But the absence of a truly scientific comparison has never stopped the amusement that comes from the eternal sports and pop culture debates of our time: Jordan vs. LeBron (or Kareem, or Kobe). Brady vs. Montana (or Marino, or Mahomes). “Star Wars” vs. “Star Trek” (or Harry Potter, or the Marvel Universe).

Even without definitive conclusions, it’s impossible for certain loyalists, haters and obsessives not to wonder how giants match up using whatever evidence might be available.

So with Swift’s career still peaking late into its second decade, we ran the numbers and analyzed the data, taking stock of what she has accomplished so far — and when — alongside some of the heaviest hitters in each category.

Taylor vs. the Beatles

Hit Singles

First, there are the Beatles, who for most music fans still represent the gold standard of pop mania in modern times.

A detail of the same page, showing the Beatles in the top 5 spots. When it comes to Billboard No. 1 singles … … they set the benchmark.

From the early 1960s, when pop music usually came in the form of two-sided vinyl singles, until the Fab Four broke up in 1970, the band released 64 songs that landed on Billboard’s all-genre chart, known as the Hot 100.

In that time, the Beatles helped to usher in the rock ’n’ roll revolution — and the album age — by releasing more than a dozen LPs.

But many of the records they set for hit singles still stand today.

Billboard Top 10s 10 5 ’63 ’70 10 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT ‘Change’ (2008) 5 ’24 ’06 Billboard Top 10s 10 THE BEATLES 5 No. 1s ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ (2012) 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ (2012) 5 ’24 ’06 10 THE BEATLES 5 ’63 ’70 10 TAYLOR SWIFT 5 ’24 ’06 Two bar charts: one for the Beatles, one for Taylor Swift. They show how many Billboard Top 10 hits each act earned over the course of their respective careers. Bobblehead images of the Beatles and of Taylor Swift appear at first above each chart. Let’s look at how Swift’s Top 10 hits compare to the Beatles’ over the course of their careers, starting with the year each of them released their first original single in the U.S. The Beatles’ timeline spans from 1963 through 1970, with 11 hits in ‘64 and a decline down to just two in 1970. Taylor’s timeline spans from 2006 to 2024, first showing two hits in 2008 and a more gradual incline to 10 hits in 2022, nine in 2023 and 10 in 2024. What is incredible to remember is that almost all of the Beatles’ success — and their entire artistic output — happened very quickly. The first eight years of the charts are highlighted. Of the band’s 35 total Top 10 hits, 32 of them arrived in just eight years. (Three more Top 10s came after the band split.) The Beatles came in hot, then they were gone — a risk for groups, with their various egos and complications, that Swift will never have to face. The highlight is removed.