Taylor Swift
As expected, Taylor Swift‘s new album Midnights made a huge splash on the Billboard 200 chart. Not only did it easily debut at #1, it had the largest week of any album on the chart in almost seven years. Midnights earned 1.578 million equivalent album units, according to Luminate. The album was released without any music out in advance at midnight on October 21, with Swift adding seven bonus tracks overnight for its “3AM Edition.”
According to Billboard, Swift is now tied with Barbra Streisand for the most #1 albums in history by any female artist, with 11. Midnights is already the year’s top-selling album and had the largest sales week for an album since her own Reputation in 2017. Album sales totaled 1.140 million units across all formats: 575,000 on vinyl, 395,000 on CD, 10,000 on cassette, and digital album downloads comprised 161,000. Earlier this year, Harry Styles set a new record for one week vinyl LP sales with Harry’s House moving 182,000 copies. Midnights smashed that number with 575,000 records. Also, Midnights‘ 395,000 in CD sales is the largest sales week for since Reputation launched with 507,000 copies sold. It was released with a number of variants, in addition to the “3 AM” deluxe edition, Midnights also came out with an alternate iTunes exclusive version, multiple CD art versions, four different LP editions and Target-exclusive options, as well as both explicit and clean edits. More special edition options, including autographed copies, were sold via Swift’s online store.
Midnights also now has the third-largest streaming week ever for an album, by total on-demand official streams, behind two of Drake‘s albums (Scorpion and Certified Lover Boy).
As for the rest of the chart, last week’s #1, It’s Only Me from Lil Baby, moves back to #2. Bad Bunny‘s smash Un Verano Sin Ti is at #3 with Morgan Wallen‘s Dangerous: The Double Album at #4 and The Highlights from The Weeknd at #5.
The second-highest debut this week comes from veteran UK band Arctic Monkeys, whose newest release The Car parks at #6. YoungBoy Never Broke Again‘s Ma’ I Got a Family debuts at #7. Jeezy and DJ Drama‘s team-up Snofall arrives at #9.
The Top 10 is filled out by Harry Styles at #8 and Beyoncé at #10.
