Taylor Swift has surpassed her own huge achievements with The Life Of A Showgirl (EMI).
Swift’s 12th studio album (not including ‘Taylor’s Version’ releases) has beaten the huge week one result (270,091 units) for 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department – then the highest for any album for seven years, and the highest of Swift’s career to that point.
Taylor Swift now has a new benchmark with The Life Of A Showgirl, which amassed first week consumption in the UK of 423,444 units. That total includes 194,596 CDs, 125,592 vinyl albums, 2,652 cassettes, 16,535 digital downloads and 84,069 sales-equivalent streams.
As reported in Alan Jones’ charts analysis, The Life Of A Showgirl outsold the rest of the Top 100 combined, and singlehandedly secured a 14.39% share of the overall album market, and 48.31% of the vinyl market.
On the singles chart, Swift has become the first artist ever to have simultaneous new entries at No.1, No.2 and No.3. It is the fourth time in her career that Swift has achieved the singles and albums chart double.
The Fate Of Ophelia charted at No.1 (132,501 sales), followed by Opalite (No.2, 93,017 sales) and Elizabeth Taylor (No.3, 90,636 sales). The Fate Of Ophelia’s DUS tally is the highest for a No.1 since LadBaby’s Sausage Rolls For Everyone (feat. Ed Sheeran & Elton John) opened its account with 136,445 units 198 weeks ago, in December 2021.
The Life Of A Showgirl is Swift’s 14th No.1, putting her ahead of Elvis Presley as the international artist with most UK No.1s. Only The Beatles and Robbie Williams – with 15 each – have had more. Ten of Swift’s No.1 albums have come in the 2020s, twice as many as nearest challenger, Ed Sheeran.
Speaking of Sheeran, The Life Of A Showgirl has beaten a streaming record that he set with Divide in 2017. Swift has surpassed her own previous personal best of 78,907 set by TTPD, and also the all-time all-artist record of 78,944 (just 37 more than TTPD) set by Ed Sheeran’s Divide in March 2017.
The vinyl version of the album sold a staggering 125,592 units in a week. It immediately replaces The Tortured Poets Department (66,388 sales) as the album which has sold most copies on vinyl in a week in the Kantar (Millward Brown) chart era (1994 onwards).
It also surpasses anything in the era (1983-1994) of previous chart compilers Gallup. As Alan Jones writes in his albums analysis, you need to go back to 1980 (ABBA’s Super Trouper), or perhaps even The Beatles in the 1960s for a bigger vinyl sales week, although these are based on advance vinyl orders.
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