Taylor Swift broke the record for weekly vinyl sales in three days
Taylor Swift continues to smash her own records with her 11th album The Tortured Poets Department
Music News Swift
Another Taylor Swift album cycle, another barrage of broken records for music’s conquering titan. According to Variety, Swift has already sold 700,000 vinyl copies of The Tortured Poets Department, breaking the record for weekly vinyl sales in just three days. By the time the week is out, she’ll have broken the previous record of 693,000 copies set by Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version), which toppled the previous record of 570,000 set by Taylor Swift’s Midnights.
These sales figures are for “the modern era,” marking the period from 1991 onward when SoundScan began to track sales numbers. That means other artists may have sold more than Swift back when vinyl was the dominant way of consuming music, but no one comes close to touching Swift’s vinyl sales in the 30-plus years since. In 2022, she sold more vinyl records than the next two biggest sellers (Harry Styles and The Beatles) combined; one in every 25 vinyl LPs sold was a Taylor Swift album. In 2023, one in every 15 vinyl LPs was a Swift album (via Billboard).
Of course, as we’ve noted before, Swift doesn’t break these records solely on the strength of the music. She released four different versions of the album on vinyl, each with minor differences (bonus tracks, album covers, and the color of the physical record) to make it worth buying potentially multiple different versions of the same record. Swift is skilled at creating collectibles that her fans will love: Midnights had four different editions that could be joined together to make a clock (Swift sold the accompanying gadgetry); folklore had a staggering nine different editions. This goes beyond vinyl, as well. According to Billboard, Tortured Poets marked Swift’s biggest sales week ever for an album at 1.4 million copies—which, as the outlet notes, is bolstered by the availability of “20 different editions among physical and digital configurations.”
This comes despite mixed reviews of the album, with some critics lauding Tortured Poets as an “instant classic” while others derided it as more of the same. (On our B review, we noted that “the influence of that hyperproductivity is evident in Tortured Poets. Production-wise, many of Swift’s collaborations with Jack Antonoff sound like Midnights B-sides, or worse, like 1989 Vault Tracks (essentially, C-sides).”) One frequent criticism of her 11th album is that it was overstuffed; already long with 16 tracks, Swift added an additional 15 with her surprise double album drop of TTPD: The Anthology.
But the 31-song project is part of what makes the album a financial success. Swift also smashed the Spotify records for most-streamed album and most-streamed artist in a single day with the TTPD release. Per Billboard, she generated 490.2 million on-demand official streams in three days. So far that’s second only in 2024 to Drake (514 million on-demand official streams), who had a similarly supersized 23-track strategy with For All The Dogs. If fans keep listening to the double album in its entirety, Swift could top Drake’s record and her own first-week streaming record (549.3 million for Midnights). Similarly, her sales will no doubt be boosted if and when she announces physical copies, vinyl or otherwise, for The Anthology. Whatever the critical appraisal of the album might be, there’s no doubt it’s a triumphant (and lucrative) continuation of Swift’s cultural dominance.
17 Comments
You hear so much less about Drake. I’m always surprised when he beats her on things like this. Love or hate either of them, but she seems objectively much more popular.
…k.
Eh, she’s still just a fad
Veruca got daddy to buy them all.
Pretty easy to win a race when only a handful of artists are even playing. Also vinyl sucks in every way; terrible for the environment and objectively a worse listening experience than CD or digital.Maybe Swift can break the record for most wax cylinders sold while she’s at it.
But people were not meant to listen to music with such clarity! People need to hear snaps and pops and that shit!
terrible for the environmentStreaming music for two hours generates as much CO2 as the production of a single vinyl LP, but go off. objectively a worse listening experience than CD or digital.The word you’re looking for there is “subjectively.” Some people prefer it, others don’t. The only way to be wrong is to be a pedantic dweeb about it.
The amount of electricity needed to power a record player to listen to that vinyl is greater than that needed to stream 2 hours of audio, the degree of which depending on the source and the speaker, so thanks, I will go off. Also records aren’t 2 hours long.And the word objectively was used correctly. The album in question was recorded digitally, and is hence intended for a lossless digital consumption, which vinyl does not provide. The pedantry being exhibited here is by you, who could have just not insulted a stranger in passing while failing to correct their writing. And now also by me for having to explain myself, so I guess half a point to you (or if you speak troll: 5/10 made me reply.)
The amount of electricity needed to power a record player to listen to that vinyl is greater than that needed to stream 2 hours of audioThe Ecologist(1) says it’s essentially a wash. That said, I’ll absolutely concede that the manner in which these particular Taylor Swift records are being produced (mass produced plastic gewgaws in a rainbow of colors, designed to sell multiple copies to individual customers, many of whom likely don’t own the equipment needed to actually play the damn things) is, by many measures, excessive.the word objectively was used correctly. The album in question was recorded digitally, and is hence intended for a lossless digital consumption, which vinyl does not provide.You’re talking about audio quality, which is definitely part of, but not all of, the experience of listening to music. Very few folks who collect and enjoy listening to vinyl records are doing out of some slavish dedication to analog purity. When I think of “experience,” I’m including the feeling of flipping through the records, the thrill of finding a record I hadn’t listened to in a long time, pulling it out of the sleeve, putting it on the turntable, dropping the needle, and looking at the sleeve while I listen.
I would also say that popping in my headphones, opening the app, and hitting shuffle on an algorithmically generated playlist that will play back at 160 kbps can be a wonderful experience, being reminded of old songs I hadn’t heard in years, or hearing a new band that I would never have discovered otherwise.
Neither experience is objectively better than the other. I could go on about how that’s also the case if you’re talking strictly about sound quality, but I think we’d agree that we’ve all heard enough from me. 1 https://theecologist.org/2018/mar/16/setting-record-straight-streaming-greener-vinyl
This may sound cool until you find out that Swift owns several vinyl mines and is manipulating the market to profit from both ends.
I hear the conditions in those mines are less than ideal.
Plus you know how many kids it takes to write out the liner notes for all those albums?
This may sound cool until you find out that most record presses are running on months-long delays because they’re choked with gimmick releases like this.
Her many songwriters must be thrilled.
I know I’m commenting (but not first). Just don’t comment on these things. Silence is a statement.
How many of those 700k copies will ever have the plastic taken off and see the light of day? I imagine the vast majority of buyers are people think they have a collector’s item. Like the Franklin Mint plates of 2024.They’ll be on eBay soon with ridiculous BIN prices.
“…other artists may have sold more than Swift back when vinyl was the dominant way of consuming music…”
Really?