The American pop star of the new millennium has beaten the female music icon par excellence: Taylor Swift is the "most listened to" singer in history.
2025 marks a true generational turning point in the global music landscape. Indeed, a sort of definitive handover. When we think of the superstars who have dominated the charts, two names immediately come to mind, two emblems of different generations: on the one hand, the absolute pioneer of female pop music, the icon Madonna, and on the other, the contemporary star who has redefined what it means to be an artist in the 21st century, Taylor Swift.
Today, thanks to a new ranking that measures global impact and listenership, Taylor Swift has surpassed Madonna as the most-streamed female artist ever. But it’s not just a leap forward: it’s also a sign of how the music industry has transformed, from vinyl to streaming, from CDs to global playlists. Making a comparison between yesterday and today is not trivial, but the music industry has learned to quantify successes and failures even in an era where record sales are no longer the basis of an artist’s wealth. This is how and why we can say that "Taylor Swift has surpassed Madonna."
Swift beats Madonna as the most-streamed female artist ever
According to the analysis published by ChartMasters, Taylor Swift has achieved a total of approximately 253.4 million EAS (Equivalent Album Sales), surpassing Madonna, who had 253.3 million.
The margin is very small—about 100,000 units—but symbolically gigantic: we’re not talking about a simple "best-seller" but "most-streamed" of her entire career, taking into account the new dimension of streaming.
The ranking isn’t limited to female artists: Taylor Swift currently ranks fifth overall among all artists in history, behind legends like The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, and Queen. In short, not exactly the newcomers.
Trying to understand how this overtaking occurred, her global listens on audio-on-demand platforms exceed 140 billion, a volume that dwarfs that of Madonna, who stands at around 14 billion.
It should be remembered, however, that Madonna still maintains a significant lead in physical sales, a sector in which she dominates an era that far predates the streaming era. It is therefore a leap forward that captures a new era in music: the digital one.
What is EAS, or Equivalent Album Sales?
The EAS (Equivalent Album Sales) metric is the key to understanding how two drastically different musical generations have been compared.
The idea is to harmonize, on a single scale, consumption from physical formats (vinyl, CD), digital downloads, singles, and streaming: essentially, to transform everything into "album equivalents" to create a more fair comparison.
For example, on the ChartMasters website—where the various data are analyzed—it is explained how audio-on-demand streaming can be converted into EAS using a ratio (for example, 1,500 audio streams = 1 equivalent album unit, or for video streaming, 6,750 streams = 1 EAS); the sale of one album (1 equivalent album unit), on the other hand, symbolically corresponds to 10 downloads of individual songs.
The creation of this metric responds to the need to move beyond simply counting "pure sales" (albums sold), which penalized those who operated only in the physical era and failed to consider the enormous impact of streams. With the meteoric rise of digital consumption, it was necessary to shift from a "number of records sold" metric to a "unit of total consumption" that better reflects the contemporary era.
In practice, EAS allow us to add together albums sold, singles sold/digitally, and streams, assigning each a "weight" that makes them comparable. This means that an artist with few physical records but tens of billions of streams can stand out in a general ranking, just like an artist who has sold tens of millions of physical albums but is not active digitally.
It’s important to remember, however, that the equivalence is not perfect: market conditions, the economic value of streaming, and the differences between countries and formats always make the figures indicative.
Swift beats Madonna in earnings too? Here’s what the recent statistics say
If the overtaking in terms of listenership now seems consolidated, what about the earnings and net worth of the two artists? As for Taylor Swift, according to Forbes and numerous industry estimates, her net worth is estimated to be around $1.6 billion in 2025.
This makes her the richest female musician in the world, and one of the few artists to reach the billion-dollar threshold (which actually happened in October 2023) thanks to music and concerts, not primarily taking into account external investments. Her world tour The Eras Tour (2023-2024) brought in over $2 billion, a disproportionate amount that fueled much of this value.
On the other hand, Madonna isn’t officially a billionaire: authoritative estimates place her net worth around $850 million in 2025. While these are very high figures, it’s clear that—even financially—there’s a significant gap between the two.
And the generational difference is a far more significant factor. It must be said, in fact, that these are different scenarios: Madonna dominated in an era when revenues were primarily derived from physical media sales, tours, and traditional merchandise; Taylor Swift has managed to transform every million streams, every collectible vinyl edition, and every tour into a globally scalable economic asset.
Original article published on Money.it Italy. Original title: Sorpasso storico in questa classifica. Taylor Swift batte Madonna
