Taylor Swift Has 7 of the Top 10 on Billboard’s Album Sales Chart
Taylor Swift holds seven of the top 10 titles on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Jan. 6), marking the first time any act has concurrently claimed as many titles in the region since the chart launched in 1991. Previously, Swift held the record for the most concurrent albums in the top 10 on Top Album Sales, with six, on three separate weeks.
Swift leads the latest list with her most recent release, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), which rules for a fourth nonconsecutive week. She also populates the top 10 with former chart-toppers at Nos. 2, 4, 6-8 and 10.
The Jan. 6-dated chart reflects album sales in the U.S. in the final tracking week of 2023 (Dec. 22-28), as tabulated by data-tracking firm Luminate, thus capturing some last-minute holiday shopping relating to the Christmas Day holiday on Dec. 25. Most of Swift’s sales for the week were owed to vinyl purchases. Of Swift’s total album sales across all of her albums for the week, including those not in the top 10, vinyl sales accounted for 65% of her total sales.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) heads up the new Top Album Sales chart, holding at No. 1 with 61,000 copies sold in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 28 (down 36%). She’s also in the top 10 with Midnights (holding at No. 2 with 24,000; down 44%), Lover (3-4 with 22,000; down 28%), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (4-6 with 20,000; down 31%), Evermore (12-7 with 17,000; up 5%), Folklore (6-8 with 16,000; down 38%) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (holding at No. 10 with 13,000; down 29%).
The only non-Swift titles in the top 10 are Stray Kids’ ROCK-STAR (7-3 with 23,000; down 3%), Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts (holding at No. 5 with 20,000; down 22%) and ATEEZ’s The World EP.Fin: Will (8-9 with 14,000; down 33%) – all former No. 1s.
In the week ending Dec. 28, there were 2.507 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 29.4% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 2.172 million (down 32.5%) and digital albums comprised 335,000 (up 0.1%).
There were 755,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Dec. 28 (down 34.4% week-over-week) and 1.409 million vinyl albums sold (down 31.4%).
Keith Caulfield
Billboard