Bing Crosby. The Taylor Swift of the 78 era.

[PeteLeoni]

Yep. I said it, make what you will of it.

[gramophone-georg]

Taylor has bigger... concerts.

[OrthoFan]

It wold be hard to top Bing Crosby's career. The fact that he's still a household name, 46 years after his death, speaks volumes. In addition to having made over 2000 commercial recordings from the 1920s to the 1970s (you can Google it) including the best selling single of all time (White Christmas), Crosby appeared in over 100* films starting in 1930, won the Best Actor Oscar (1944 -- Going My Way), and was nominated two other times -- https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001078/awards/ He starred in several popular radio shows** and was a frequent guest and star of dozens and dozens of US televisions specials from the early 1950s until the mid-1970s.

OrthoFan

* Movie/TV Career -- https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001078/
** From 1931 to 1962, Bing appeared on the radio once a week, hosting the Kraft Music Hall, Philco Radio Time, and the Bing Crosby Chesterfield and General Electric radio shows

[epigramophone]

My grand-daughters, aged 15 and 12, are both fans of Taylor Swift. So far I have managed to avoid seeing or hearing the woman, but as I will be spending Christmas with them I fear that my luck may be about to run out.
If I ask them whether they have heard of Bing Crosby, their response will probably be "Who?"

I wonder whether Bing or Taylor would have had a singing career without the invention of the microphone.

[Lah Ca]

What's not to like about Taylor Swift?

She is good looking, intelligent, articulate, and talented (at producing fairly high quality cookie-cutter pop).

She seems to have taken on the power structure of the music business and defeated it.

She apparently treats her employees well.

She acts as a mentor to other younger women, helping them navigate a career in a hazardous and capricious business.

I actually like her a lot. I just wish I like her music, too, but I don't..

But hey ... you like what you like and don't what you don't. You shouldn't have to justify it.

There is an apocryphal story about Duke Ellington in which an interviewer asked, "What kind of music do you like?" Ellington replied, "There are only two kinds of music, good music and bad music. Good music is the kind I like."

As for Bing ... maybe he gave the Taylor Swift thing a go in the 1950s:

https://youtu.be/ZDMDn9ajJp0?si=LUn-2J2MmqVwkLQm