Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl makes history by selling 4 million copies in first week

That’s show business for you! Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, has officially sold 4.002 million equivalent album units — which includes album sales and streaming activity — in its first week in the US That is the biggest first week in modern music history; at least, according to Luminate, the industry data and analytics company that began tracking sales in 1991.

The Life of a Showgirl sells 4 million copies in first week

Taylor broke the record set by Adele’s 25, which sold 3.378 million copies in its first week in 2015 in the US. The Life of a Showgirl was released October 3. In its first week, pure album sales totaled 3,479,500 copies. She’s also become the solo artist with the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, with 15. She was previously tied with Drake and Jay-Z, who each have 14. Taylor is now just behind The Beatles, who boast of 19 No. 1 albums.

She is no stranger to breaking records, and when it comes to The Life of a Showgirl, the history-making started immediately. In its first day of release, the album sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales, breaking her record for most first week sales... in one day. Her last album, 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, amassed 2.61 million equivalent album units in the US in its first week.

Also, The Life of a Showgirl broke the record for the most copies of a vinyl album sold in a single week in the US, with 1.2 million copies in its first day. The previous record holder was “The Tortured Poets Department,” which sold 859,000 copies on vinyl in its first week.

Vinyl variants move the needle

One of the reasons Taylorhas seen so much success is that she released her record in several different variants. Those include multiple editions specific to Target — three CDs titled It’s Frightening, It’s Rapturous and It’s Beautiful, as well as an exclusive vinyl release, The Crowd Is Your King.

There are a number of other vinyl variants as well, The Tiny Bubble in Champagne Collection, The Baby That’s Show Business Collection, The Shiny Bug Collection and the standard LP and cassette, in “sweat and vanilla perfume Portofino orange vinyl.”

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