Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl has officially sold more than 3.5 million equivalent album units in the United States in its first week of release, setting a new record: It’s the largest sales and streaming week, by equivalent album units, for an album since Billboard began charting and ranking each week’s most popular albums (including physical sales, digital sales, and streaming) since December 2014.
The previous record holder was Adele’s 2015 album 25, which came in with 3.482 million units sold and streamed upon its release in December 2015. Though the current sales week is not yet over, Billboard confirmed The Life of a Showgirl’s record-setting number via the data tracking firm Luminate; Swift’s new album has already moved 3.2 million physical copies, with the remaining 300,000 units being accounted for via streaming.
With Swift at 3.2 million physical copies sold, Adele still technically holds the modern-era single-week sales record with 3.378 million for the opening week of 25; however, Billboard predicts that Swift will surpass Adele in that regard as well (the single-week sales numbers will be officially revealed on Sunday, October 12th).
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Swift’s success with physical sales is nothing new, but her rollout for The Life of a Showgirl has been particularly focused on juicing vinyl and CD numbers. 28 variants — with exclusivity incentives to buy not one, but several copies — is a major reason why Showgirl will (probably) break Adele’s record for the largest single-week album sales.
In our recent feature on Swift’s physical release strategy, contributor Kiana Fitzgerald broke down some of the economic reasoning behind these multiple variants, and why this is having the biggest impact on Swift’s fans.