Taylor Swift and Rihanna: Who should Billboard's 'Artist of the Decade' title go to?

This is an extremely difficult problem for music listeners!

As usual, when a decade is about to end, Billboard is busy preparing to choose an artist of the decade. This can be considered an extremely remarkable and admirable title, because the artist who achieves this title, in addition to possessing outstanding success, is also the clearest symbol for the entire music industry. lasted for ten years. And in this rapidly approaching poll, Rihanna and Taylor Swift are the two most prominent factors that Billboard is “eyeing” for the title of Artist of the Decade – Artist of the Decade.

Rihanna, a decade of rebellion and “squandering”

Don’t rush to judge Rihanna in just the past 2 years and forget that she has had an extremely memorable decade of dedication to the music industry. Starting in 2010, it was the album that made a huge splash for Rihanna – Loud. This can be considered one of the most successful albums of Rihanna’s career, with nearly all of the singles from the album becoming quick hits.

We Found Love, Rihanna’s most successful song of the decade

Over the past ten years, what we’ve seen Rihanna do with music is always rebel and push beyond limits. Rihanna’s songs talk a lot about sensitive topics, about partying and playing around, about endless rebellion. Many people say Rihanna’s music is the best music for all-night parties. However, besides trendy and catchy pop/dance songs, Rihanna is also constantly moving towards unique and strange musical experiences that truly express her personality and artistry – and are not necessarily for everyone. Most of the audience listened.

Over the past ten years, Rihanna can be considered an admirable success, creating a musical and visual impact throughout all her years of operation. Even when the delay in not releasing music products but focusing on a cosmetics brand became a hot topic of discussion. Obviously, the world is currently very “hungry” for Rihanna’s music, which further proves one thing, Rihanna always maintains her reputation very well. A whole year without mentioning anything about music, but suddenly, she appeared like a goddess and took up all the spotlight at the MET Gala, the biggest gala in the art world.

That’s a true “bad girl” that Rihanna always keeps to herself. Without aiming for a distant, perfect image, without wanting to become a queen or an inspirational person, Rihanna lives very real, very tough and very strong. Now, clearly, when you look at Rihanna’s past ten years in the music industry, there are no regrets. And there’s only one question: “When will that ‘bad girl’ release her new album?”

Taylor Swift, a decade of change and improvement

Taylor Swift started this decade with the image of a Country Music Princess, and that will definitely be an image that the audience will remember forever, even though the Taylor of 2018 (and of 2019) has almost changed. completely transformed into Pop music and increasingly asserted himself. Many of her die-hard fans, even though they are used to Taylor singing Pop music, still keep in themselves the image of a sweet Pop Princess and always look forward to one day reuniting with that image.

Blank Space, the most successful song of this decade by Taylor Swift.

But perhaps, with what Taylor has been doing for the past ten years, what we can see is a methodical and professional approach, everything has been very carefully calculated, as opposed to being spontaneous. Rihanna’s momentary release. Even if there is a change from country to pop music, it is a very slow change, very gradual so that the audience is not overwhelmed. Between style changes, there are always enough stepping stones and signals for fans to recognize.

However, things may have gradually changed with Look What You Made Me Do and the album Reputation. It was thought that with a blockbuster leading the way like Look What You Made Me Do with a thousand and one scandalous stories compressed into one product, this would be an era filled with “drama”. … but no, what Taylor did next proved the exact opposite. Taylor has been completely silent since Look What You Made Me Do, an incomprehensible silence. And when the Reputation era ended, we were startled to realize one thing: Taylor no longer wanted to be surrounded by people, she only wanted herself, music and maybe only Joe Alwyn.

Taylor’s 10 years have probably had a more obvious change than Rihanna’s, because it included a transformation and a change in image so strong that looking back ten years ago it was hard to believe. Taylor’s path is one of daily improvement, step by step transformation, making it easy for the audience to adapt. And perhaps, with that right strategy, Taylor’s name can only get hotter and hotter in the music industry.