Taylor Swift’s new album breaks sales records in its first week

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Taylor Swift broke the record for first-week sales in the United States with her album life of a showgirl, Over 4 million units sold – the biggest debut since data tracking began in 1991.

Of those four million, 3.5 million were sales of vinyl, CDs, cassette tapes and digital downloads, while 500,000 came from streaming, according to data firm Luminate. This number exceeds the previous record set by Adele 25Which sold 3.4 million copies in 2015.

Swift’s tally of the album was met with confusion Reviews from critics, which is unprecedented in the streaming era, when physical sales have largely collapsed. Other top-tier pop acts, including Beyoncé, Billie Eilish and Kendrick Lamar, sold between 200,000 and 400,000 album units in the first week — considered a strong performance.

Industry blog Hits Daily Double called it “the biggest moment in the company’s sales history”, and credited Swift’s ability to “be everywhere in this highly fragmented media age”.

35 years old Swift He has long been one of the world’s most successful pop stars, after rising to fame in 2008. fearless.

But in recent years its commercial power has reached a new level. Music executives place her in a rare group alongside Madonna, The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson for her ability to sell records on a massive scale.

Her previous album, Last Year Section of tortured poetsIt sold 2.6 million copies in its first week, a number that was seen at the time as exceptional. The life of a showgirl He surpassed it by a large margin.

The new album is Swift’s 12th studio release and is distributed by Universal Music Group, which takes a percentage of its sales.

Luminate, formerly known as Nielsen Music, calculates album equivalent units, which includes listening on streaming platforms as well as vinyl, CD sales and digital downloads. It counts 1,250 streams from paid Spotify accounts — or 3,750 from free, ad-supported accounts — as one album sale.

Vinyl has undergone a renaissance as passionate fans embrace the records as collectibles and loyalty statements.

The trend began with K-pop, but has spread to the United States with stars like Swift, who have embraced the form.

The life of a showgirl It was released in vinyl, CD, cassette tape and digital variants – a strategy that analysts say helped boost first-week sales. There were 38 different versions of the album available for purchase, including 16 CDs and eight vinyl LPs.

“I will never forget how happy I was in 2006 when my first album sold 40,000 copies in its first week,” Swift said on Monday.

“Here we are all these years later, and a lot of people have come up to me this week a hundred times.”