Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ sets new records on Spotify and vinyl : NPR

Taylor Swift performs on stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on September 20, 2022.

Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

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Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

Taylor Swift performs on stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on September 20, 2022.

Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

Taylor Swift, the millennial pop goddess whose latest album is now the first to surpass 1 billion Spotify streams in a single week, also broke her own record for physical album sales.

Her Department of Tortured Poets, released on April 19, took just five days to make history on Spotify. And in a typical overachiever move, Swift not only sold the most vinyl albums in a week, but it only took three days to do it. And the record she broke was hers.

Department of Tortured Poets has sold over 700,000 physical albums to date. Last year, about a million vinyl records were sold in total in the United States. Nearly 10 percent of them belonged to Taylor Swift.

Swift closed out 2023 with five of the year’s top 10 best-selling vinyl records, leading with 1989 (Taylor version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) And Midnight. Each of them has sold more than 500,000 physical copies.

It should be noted that these figures were greatly facilitated by two factors. The first is that vinyl record sales were not tracked rigorously until the early 1990s by Soundscan. Before that, it’s possible that other artists sold over 700,000 physical albums in a week, but there simply isn’t any data to prove it.

The other factor is that Swift’s albums are released in multiple editions. Many hardcore Swifties make it a point to collect them all. So, for example, a transparent vinyl version of Department of Tortured Poets with a bonus track is only available at Target. Other versions are only available on the Swift website.

The sales of each of them count for Tortured poets‘ total.