Taylor Swift is setting some chart benchmarks with the release of her album “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” becoming the first woman to have four albums on Billboard’s Top 10 chart at once.
His latest release debuted at No. 1 with the highest numbers of the year so far for any release. According Billboardthat’s the first time a woman has done that in the entire six-decade history of having an album chart, and she’s one of only three artists to accomplish the feat.
Swift also set a record for the female artist with the most No. 1 albums in history: she now has a dozen, surpassing Barbra Streisand, with whom she was previously tied with 11 each.
“Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” leaning over the billboard 200 with 716,000 album-equivalent units. That number ensured it wasn’t even a photographic finish in this year’s opening week derby, as the previous best tally was held by Morgan Wallen’s «One Thing at a Time,» which debuted in March at 501,000.
The other three albums Swift has in her triumphant top-10 quadrilogy are 2022’s «Midnights» at No. 5, 2019’s «Lover» at No. 7 and 2020’s «Folklore» at No. 10.
In response to trivia buffs who will want to know who is on the very short list of artists who have had four top 10 albums simultaneously, the other two being Herb Alpert and Prince. Alpert was the last person alive to manage that many, when he did so in 1966. He succeeded Prince posthumously, just after his death in 2016. No one else has owned four at a time since the chart was instituted in 1963. .
“Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” also marked the biggest debut number of the three re-recordings Swift has released to date, in her drive to remake all the albums she originally recorded for her former label, Big Machine.
“Red (Taylor’s Version)” is now in second place, having dated 605,000 by the end of 2021. The first in this series, “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” had a less auspicious bow, with 291,000 by early 2021. and the lower number is partly explained by the fact that the coveted vinyl version was not yet available at the time of general release. That one, like the others, easily debuted at No. 1 anyway.
Sales accounted for much of the «Speak Now» total, in an era when most No. 1 albums derive almost all of their strength from streaming. The album’s actual first week sales totaled 507,000 copies. Of these, vinyl sales accounted for 268,500. Billboard says it’s the second-biggest week for a vinyl album since SoundScan began tracking them in 1991. The only LP to have a better opening week in the past 32 years is Swift’s «Midnights,» which sold 575,000 copies on vinyl. from the door last October.
And in overall opening numbers, including streaming and sales, «Speak Now» is the biggest album since «Midnights,» which came out with 1.58 million units in its first week.
His number of 716,000 units for “Speak Now” is the fifth-biggest arc in the last five years, Billboard also notes. Swift’s albums account for four out of five of those debuts, with Adele’s «30» being the fourth biggest, just ahead of «Speak Now.»
Let’s not forget that other albums that broke into the top 10 amid Swift’s onslaught include Wallen’s «One Thing at a Time» at No. 2 (with 104,000 units) and «Dangerous» at No. #6; Lil Uzi Vert’s “Pink Tape” at No. 3 (two positions below her position at No. 1 last week, with 61,000 in week 2); Featherweight’s “Genesis” at No. 4, and Gunna’s “A Gift and a Curse” at No. 9.