Taylor Swift's 2008 Album Fearless

From Wikipedia: Fearless is an international breakthrough and huge commercial success for Swift. It debuted at No. 1 in the United States, and later became the best-selling album of 2009, selling over 3.2 million copies. It gave Swift, 18 at the time, the distinction of being the youngest artist in history to have the year's best-selling album. It has sold over 7 million copies in the United States,[2] becoming the second-biggest-selling album in the last six years.

808's and Heartbreaks (Kanye's 2008 Album) By 2013, it had sold 1.7 million copies in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/808s_%26_Heartbreak

Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It spent 32 weeks on the Billboard 200,[120] and by July 2013, it had sold 1,351,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.[121]

Kanye's VMA move put Taylor in the spotlight in the news, but in 2008 Taylor was a more successful artist. Honestly I think Kanye's stunt made Kanye famous.