Taylor Swift Scores Historic Billboard No. 1 Debut With 'The Tortured Poets Department'

As expected, Taylor Swift's newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, opened at the top spot of the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Swift's record-breaking release secured her the top spot of this week, but her gigantic week set her up for the second-biggest album debut of all time since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991.

Taylor Swift 'The Tortured Poets Department' Billboard 200 Debut

Luminate, as reported by Billboard, announced that The Tortured Poets Department opened with 2.61 million equivalent album units in the United States in its first week. Album units are defined by the total traditional album sales and streaming figures that the album has earned on its tracking cycle.

Specifically, the traditional album sales, composed of digital download albums, CDs, vinyl LPs and cassettes, composed the huge chunk of the final numbers with 1.914 million. Of that number, vinyl is the biggest with 859,000 copies. Track units comprised 14,000.

After shattering Spotify's record of being the first album in streaming history to earn a billion streams within its first week of release, the official numbers for the 31-song album earned 683,000 units or 891.34 million on-demand streams.

Notably, The Tortured Poets Department's album release marked the largest streaming week for any album ever and the second-largest week debut since Billboard 200 started measuring by album units in December 2014. Adele was unmoved on the top spot with 3.378 million album units with the release of 25.

TTPD's album debut also set the third-largest sales week (by traditional album sales) for any album since 1991 and the largest sales week for an album on vinyl so far.

Taylor Swift Sets New Personal Record on Billboard Charts

Following the phenomenal opening week of The Tortured Poets Department, Swift secured her 14th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 albums chart. She now ties with Jay-Z for the most No. 1 albums on the charts among soloists.

To claim the top spot, Swift must release five or more albums and open it at No. 1 to tie or surpass The Beatles with 19 No. 1 albums. Swift edged out Drake with 13 No. 1 albums, with "For All The Dogs" being his last one.

With regards to streaming, Swift also surpassed Drake's Scorpion record, making TTPD's album release week the largest week for streaming. Drake's Scorpion earned 745.92 million in its first week in 2018.

Stream Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department on streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Tags

Taylor Swift, Billboard, Billboard 200