Never before has an album been streamed as much in a week as Taylor Swift’s new “The Tortured Poets Department”.
Monday 29 April at 01:00The release went straight to the top of the Billboard chart, and the music magazine itself refers to it as “a historic debut at number 1”.
The 16-song album was released on April 19. Two hours later, Swift surprised fans by dropping another 15 songs, announcing that it was a double album.
Also read: Taylor Swift: The phenomenon, the love, the money and the scandals
In the week up to and including 25 April, 2.61 million so-called album equivalents were sold. Of this, 1.91 million were traditional album sales, including digital downloads, CDs, cassettes and a whopping 859,000 vinyl records.
This is the highest number of vinyl copies of an album sold in a week in modern times, Billboard said on Sunday.
Flow record
The album has generated over 891 million streams, which is the highest in one week for an album of all time.
After just one week, “The Tortured Poets Department” is the best-selling so far in 2024. It is the 14th time Taylor Swift’s album has topped Billboard’s album chart.
She has so far released eleven regular albums, four re-recorded albums, five EPs and four live albums.
Also read: Taylor Swift’s mysterious messages
Past the Beatles
It was announced on Friday that the latest album, often referred to simply as ‘Poets’, had topped the charts in the UK, selling more than the rest of the top ten combined.
With that, Swift also became the fastest artist to have achieved twelve number one spots in the UK with her records – a record she took over from The Beatles.
Taylor Swift resumes her Eras tour with four concerts in Paris starting May 9. The trip then goes to Sweden for three concerts in Stockholm, the closest she will come to Norway this time.
