Pop star Taylor Swift as expected with her new album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated May 4). It is her 14th album to reach that plateau, tying Jay-Z for the most No. 1s among soloists. The Beatles, with 19 No. 1s, have more, but it should be noted that the chart’s methodology for determining sales has changed over time.
The Tortured Poets Department had 2.61 million equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending April 25, with traditional album sales (purchases of digital download albums, CDs, vinyl LPs and cassettes) comprising 1.914 million of that sum. Of that sales figure, vinyl sales represent 859,000 units. The collected 31 songs on the deluxe edition of the album generated 891.34 million on-demand official streams.
The figures mark the largest streaming week for an album, the second-largest week for an album (by total equivalent album units earned) since the Billboard 200 began measuring by units in December 2014, and the third-largest sales week (by traditional album sales) in the modern era (since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991). It is also the largest sales week for an album on vinyl in the modern era.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).
Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
The Tortured Poets Department by pop star Taylor Swift was released at midnight ET on April 19 as a standard 16-song digital download album.
Two hours after the album’s release, pop star Taylor Swift announced an expanded 31-song edition of the set and released it as a digital download and streaming album.
Since the album was released, it has also topped the UK’s music chart with the biggest first-week sales in seven years.
In addition, Tortured Poets Department has become the first album in Spotify history to surpass one billion streams in a single week and was the most-streamed album in a single day, reportedly exceeding 200 million streams.
Swift now has the top three most-streamed albums in a single day, with previous records held by Midnights and 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
Swift posted a reaction to Instagram on the Billboard news: