Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ makes gigantic debut at No. 1 with her career-best first-week sales

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Taylor Swift’s latest album “The Tortured Poets Department” is indeed the blockbuster that many expected it to become.

On Sunday, the 31-song double album debuted at No. 1 on the all-encompassing Billboard 200 albums chart, selling 2.61 million so-called equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending April 25, according to Billboard. Traditional album sales (including purchases of digital download albums, CDs, vinyl LPs and cassettes) account for 1.914 million of that total, the publication said.

“My mind is blown. I’m completely floored by the love you’ve shown this album,” Swift said in an Instagram post. “2.6 million ARE YOU ACTUALLY SERIOUS?? Thank you for listening, streaming, and welcoming Tortured Poets into your life. Feeling completely overwhelmed.”

“Tortured Poets” is Swift’s 14th album to claim the top spot. She is now tied with Jay-Z for the second-most No. 1 albums by a recording artist, both artists being just a handful of steps behind The Beatles’ 19 top albums.

Swift also has the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 albums chart among female recording artists. The achievements are even more impressive when you consider that 14 of Swift’s 15 albums (11 studio albums + four re-recorded “Taylor’s Version” releases) have claimed the No. 1 spot. Her 2006 self-titled debut album peaked at No. 5.

Along with the album’s chart-topping performance, Swift marked her biggest first-week sales to date with the album. That honor previously belonged to “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” which sold 1.359 million copies in the US in its first week last year.

“Tortured Poets” has the second-biggest single-week album sales by units earned (a measuring unit adopted by Billboard in 2014 to account for streaming’s popularity). In 2015, Adele’s “25” sold a staggering 3.482 million album units.

Swift also sold 859,000 copies of “Tortured Poets” on vinyl, which is the largest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era, according to Billboard. Swift released six vinyl variants, with four variants containing a different bonus track each (“The Manuscript,” “The Albatross,” “The Bolter” and “The Black Dog”).

Her success with the new album continued on Monday, when Swift claimed the top 14 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. Her lead single “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone was No. 1.

Drake is the only other artist, of all artists, to have more songs simultaneously appear in the top 20 of Billboard’s Hot 100 songs chart than Swift, according to Billboard. In November 2022, Drake had 15 songs claim spots in the top 20. That same month, Swift had 14 songs in the top 20.

In 2022, Swift became the first artist in the history of the music charting site to claim all 10 spots at the same time on Billboard’s Hot 100 songs chart with tracks from “Midnights.” She has also appeared in the top five, top 10, top 20 and top 40 more than any other female artist, according to Billboard.

“Tortured Poets” also broke all-time historical records on the big three music streamers Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music since its April 19 release. It became the first album to draw over 300 million streams in a single day in and the first album to reach one billion streams in a single week on Spotify. According to Billboard, Swift’s latest effort had the largest streaming week for an album ever.

The Grammy-winner released the first 16-track album last week, with the 15-track “TTPD: The Anthology” coming two hours later in a surprise release.

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