When Taylor Swift released “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)”
this month, there was no doubt it would debut at No. 1. The only questions were
how forcefully it would smash records, how many mountains of vinyl it would
sell and how far down the chart Swift’s catalog would push everybody else.
اضافة اعلان
“Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” the third installment in
Swift’s series of rerecorded albums — this one recreating “Speak Now” from 2010,
with a thick appendix of tracks revisited from the cutting-room floor — is the
year’s biggest new LP, notching the equivalent of 716,000 sales in the United
States. It easily topped Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” which opened
with 501,000 in March.
But that is not all. It is Swift’s 12th No. 1 album, beating
Barbra Streisand for the most chart-toppers by a woman. Drake also has 12 No. 1
albums, but the only acts with more are Jay-Z (14) and the Beatles (19).
The popularity of Swift’s Eras Tour has lifted her entire
catalog, and this week, in addition to the new “Speak Now,” she has three other
titles in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart: “Midnights” (No. 5),
“Lover” (No. 7) and “Folklore” (No. 10). Swift is the first living act to have four
albums in the Top 10 since Herb Alpert in 1966. (Prince had five after his
death in 2016, and for many years Billboard barred older “catalog” albums from
reappearing on its main chart — a rule that was changed after Michael Jackson’s
death, in 2009.)
Swift’s effort to remake her first six albums began after
her old record label was sold without her participation, as a way for Swift to
reclaim and control her earlier work. But the project has turned into its own
phenomenon, with fans using the opportunity to revisit their own relationship
with the music, and critics scouring the new recordings for rare — but notable
— edits, like a change to a lyric on the track “Better Than Revenge” from
“Speak Now” that had come to be seen as outdated or worse.
The new version of “Speak Now” had a bigger opening than her
two previous rerecordings, “Red” (605,000) and “Fearless” (291,000).
The 716,000 “equivalent” sales for the new “Speak Now” — a
measurement by Billboard and the data service Luminate that reconciles the
various ways fans consume music now — incorporates 269 million streams and
507,000 copies sold as a complete package. It also includes 268,500 copies on
vinyl, the second-biggest week for any vinyl album since the predecessors of
Luminate began keeping reliable sales records in 1991 — the biggest was Swift’s
own “Midnights,” which opened with 575,000 copies sold on LP back in October.
“Speak Now” continues an astonishingly productive run for
Swift. It is her sixth studio album in three years, and according to Billboard
she is the only artist to notch new No. 1 albums in each of the last five
calendar years: “Lover” (2019); “Folklore” and “Evermore” (2020); “Fearless
(Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” (2021); “Midnights” (2022);
and now “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).”
Also this week, Wallen’s “One Thing” holds at No. 2; Lil Uzi
Vert’s “Pink Tape,” last week’s top album, falls to No. 3; and Peso Pluma’s
“Génesis” is No. 4.
Read more Music
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
