Monopoly artists dominate across every music format, even vinyl.

Evidence

These dynamics further solidified the dominance of monopoly artists, whose stature only grew. Taylor Swift first rose to prominence in the aughts as a country-pop sensation, and by the 2020s, she was a superstar drawing comparisons to the Beatles in terms of influence. Surviving the Scooter Braun drama only made her stronger. After 2020, she had achieved eight Billboard number-one hits. Her Eras Tour brought in over $2 billion, and its accompanying film became the highest-grossing concert documentary of all time. Swift even enjoyed a leading position in the vinyl revival: Six of the top bestselling records were her albums, despite half of the buyers lacking turntables to play them. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 633

Categorization

• QUESTION: Buyers purchasing vinyl they cannot play — does this indicate status-signaling consumption as the omnivore monoculture’s core mechanism?