They're two of the most successful recording artists in the world, both with incredibly passionate fan bases, but which one can claim to be bigger—Taylor Swift or Beyoncé?
Both singers are currently on their respective world tours: Swift on The Eras Tour, while Beyoncé is performing her Renaissance World Tour. Both tours have been spectacularly attended by their fans, with plenty of viral moments being born during their performances.
There's no need to pitch these two talented musicians against each other to find out who's better. They have both dominated the industry to some extent. But let's find out who, at this time, can claim to be the bigger artist in 2023.
Sales
Both Swift and Beyoncé have sold millions upon millions of albums during their careers.
Swift has released 10 studio albums, with three of those being re-recorded and re-released recently, adding to her total sales.
Beyoncé on the other hand has been performing for longer than Swift, but only has seven studio albums out. However, she did release five albums with her group Destiny's Child.
There are differing reports out there but according to Best Selling Albums.org, Swift has sold a total of 75,699,207 albums worldwide, with her most popular album being 1989 which sold 14.7 million.
The same source lists Beyoncé's total album sales at 42,045,134 with her most popular being I Am... Sasha Fierce, which sold over 9.6 million. If you include Destiny's Child's album sales of 29,952,691 then that tips the scales in Beyoncé's favor. For the purposes of this comparison, we'll only include solo sales.
Taylor Swift 1 - 0 Beyoncé
Social media
Both Beyoncé and Swift have major social media presences, as the platforms allow them to communicate directly with their passionate fans. Both of them have hundreds of millions of followers across the biggest social media sites.
On Instagram, Beyoncé is far and away on top, with 314 million followers to Swift's 267 million. On Twitter, Swift is the winner, with 93.3 million to Beyoncé's 15.4 million, although she hasn't tweeted for over a year. On Facebook Swift has 79 million followers to Beyoncé's 57 million, while on TikTok the more active Swift has 19.4 million followers to Beyoncé's 4.8 million.
Discounting Twitter, as Beyoncé has seemingly left the platform, the total number of followers across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok sees Beyoncé pip the contest with 10.4 million more followers.
Taylor Swift 1 - 1 Beyoncé
Streams
Another way to measure the popularity of an artist's songs is through streaming services.
The world's most popular music streaming platform, Spotify, keeps extensive statistics for each artist whose music is available there. Famously Swift stayed away from Spotify, only adding her music to the site in June 2017, while Beyoncé's music often took a while to appear on Spotify too. 2016's Lemonade took three years to arrive.
It’s here. It’s yours, it’s mine, it’s ours. It’s an album I wrote alone about the whims, fantasies, heartaches, dramas and tragedies I lived out as a young woman between 18 and 20. I remember making tracklist after tracklist, obsessing over the right way to tell the story. I had… pic.twitter.com/I2cLH76EIH
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 7, 2023
Songstats.com gives comprehensive information about each artist's popularity on the site, and in 2023 it looks like Swift is coming out on top again.
Swift currently has 78.7 million followers while Beyoncé has 35.1 million. In the last 28 days, at the time of writing, Swift had 92.4 million listens while Beyoncé had 52.2 million.
Taylor Swift 2 - 1 Beyoncé
Awards
Both artists have glittering trophy cabinets as they've both won countless awards, breaking many records in the process.
Across the world both Beyoncé and Swift have won hundreds of awards, so it's hard to decipher whose collection is more impressive.
Keeping it close to home, comparing the number of Grammy Awards handed out by the Recording Academy, Beyoncé is in a league of her own.
While Swift has had 46 nominations and won 12 Grammys, Beyoncé has had 88 nominations and 32 wins, making her the most Grammy Award-winning artist of all time.
Taylor Swift 2 - 2 Beyoncé
So who's bigger?
Such talented artists deserve to be celebrated in their own right and it's hard to separate such icons of pop culture. Both will surely go down in history and be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston.
While it might seem to be an impossible task when considering which of the two artists is bigger, there is a literal answer to the question.
Who is bigger? Taylor Swift or Beyoncé?
According to CelebHeights.com, Beyoncé is 5 feet, 6 inches tall, while Swift is 5 feet, 9-and-a-¼ inches.
Taylor Swift 3 - 2 Beyoncé
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Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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