Maybe Taylor Swift should have called her latest album “Life of a Golden God” as the singer-songwriter has smashed the record for biggest sales week in the modern era and, in the process, achieved her 15th No. 1 album.
According to Billboard, Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl moved an astounding 4.002 million equivalent album units — which include both pure album sales and streaming activity — in its first seven days of release. Of that total, 3,479,500 came from pure sales, surpassing the previous record held by Adele, who sold 3.378 million copies of 25 in its first week back in November 2015. The only other album to have ever sold more than 2 million copies in a single week is NSYNC’s No Strings Attached, released in March 2000. (For context, the modern era of sales tracking began in 1991, when Luminate first started monitoring album purchases.)
With the feat, Swift has now achieved 15 No. 1 albums to her name, breaking a tie with Drake and JAY-Z for the most No. 1 albums among solo artists, and becoming the sole act with the second-most No. 1s in history. Only The Beatles, with 19, have more No. 1 albums in US music history.
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On its way to debuting at No. 1, The Life of a Showgirl also broke streaming and vinyl sales records. The album generated 680.90 million on-demand official streams in its first week, which marks the largest streaming week of 2025 for an album (though more than 200 million streams behind her own The Tortured Poets Department, which had the luxury of double the amount of songs). On the vinyl front, the album sold 1.334 million copies, the most of any album since tracking began in 1991 and 475,000 more than the previous record set by The Tortured Poets Department in 2024.
The achievement is all the more striking given that Showgirl hasn’t exactly received universal acclaim. (We ranked it No. 9 in her discography, so not too bad.) It’s something even Swift herself is aware of, having recently told Apple Music, “I’m not the art police. It’s like everybody is allowed to feel exactly how they want. And what our goal is as entertainers is to be a mirror.”
Of course, it’s so much more than a winning artist just keeps on winning. There’s some real layers and levels to explain Swift’s sustained success, and they’re expertly highlighted across the Showgirl promotional cycle. Or, as our own Kiana Fitzgerald wrote recently, Swift’s “business acumen might end up being more historical than her actual art.”
The aforementioned multi-version album model — Showgirl apparently has 28 (!) such editions — is perhaps the heaviest weapon in Swift’s arsenal. That’s because, as Fitzgerald further explained, it’s a simple but effective means to stoke the ravenous and loyal Swiftie fanbase.
“Swift’s team engineered Showgirl’s rollout to maximize both emotional investment and transactional value,” wrote Fitzgerald. “By releasing multiple collectible editions — acoustic versions only on certain CDs, alternate covers, vinyl in colors named like gem stones — Swift promises a heft of exclusivity.”
In a piece for TheWrap, Corbin Bolies made a similar argument. However, he didn’t just cite the sales savviness of Swift and her team, but also her “grasp on culture.” In many ways, Swift has, as Bolies further argues, “created a rare monoculture in a media environment marked by fragmentation.” In short, the spectacle Swift generates gives people a communal interest at a time when that’s nigh impossible, and the podcast spots, late-night appearances, and theatrical releases are all a means of bringing people together. And that’s good not only fostering a much-needed sense of community, but it does gangbusters for creating an echo chamber ripe for million-dollar sales.
OK, your move, music industry.