It’s no secret that rap music as a whole isn’t as strong as it was 5 years ago, when Drake was the biggest artist on the planet. Ever since the pandemic and TikTok‘s emergence pop music reclaimed its title as the most consumed genre, with Taylor on top. The same thing happened in the 00s, music by black artists was the dominant one during the first half of the decade just to be overtaken around 2008/09 (the big recession) by pop musicians.
What helped Taylor immensely in the streaming era are the constant releases of new records. Since Lover in summer 2019 she’s dropped 8 (!!!) projects, almost 200 songs in a mere 4 years. And Folklore was her crowning achievement during those years, just like Beyonce’s self-titled it helped revive interest after a somewhat muted response of their last projects (Lover/4).
Well, how exactly do you top 21 commercially? Not only did she sell unheard of amounts of physical copies, she did that at the peak of download sales, leading the industry there as well. That album remains to be 21st century’s biggest anomaly, so 25‘s decline was only natural, and still quiet soft.
I don’t think so. Rihanna has always been a singles artist, she got hits for ages, but people never seemed to care for a whole body of work from her. That’s also the reason she has never established herself as a touring force.