Taylor Swift has officially done what many thought impossible: she’s broken Adele’s decade-long record for the biggest first-week album sales in history. When Adele released 25 in 2015, it sold a staggering 3.482 million equivalent album units in its first week, setting a bar no one had reached since.
Now, nearly ten years later, Taylor Swift has surpassed that with The Life of a Showgirl, her 11th studio album.
According to Billboard, Swift has already moved 3.5 million equivalent album units since its release on October 3. The final tally won’t be revealed until October 12, but even the preliminary figures make history. For comparison, The Tortured Poets Department opened with 2.61 million units earlier this year, while 1989 (Taylor’s Version) and Midnights pulled 1.65 and 1.57 million respectively. Until now, those numbers stood as benchmarks for modern-era physical and digital sales.
A huge chunk of The Life of a Showgirl’s sales came from traditional formats. Swift sold 3.2 million physical and digital copies, just shy of Adele’s 3.387 million pure sales for 25. But factoring in streaming and other equivalents gives Swift the clear lead.
Much of the physical boost stems from Swift’s elaborate rollout strategy. She released a range of CD and vinyl variants, each with its own theme and artwork. CD versions included Sweat and Vanilla Perfume, It’s Frightening, It’s Rapturous, and It’s Beautiful. The vinyl line offered The Shiny Bug, Baby, That’s Show Business, Tiny Bubbles in Champagne, and The Crowd Is Your King. Some were limited to 24-hour sales windows, an approach that turned collecting the album into an event of its own.
Swift also dropped four special acoustic editions, Alone in My Tower, Dressing Room Rehearsal, The Life Is a Song, and So Glamorous Cabaret, featuring stripped-down performances and raw songwriting memos. Deluxe editions of select versions further fueled demand from her fan base, known for buying multiple formats.
Streaming numbers tell an equally impressive story. Within twelve hours of release, The Life of a Showgirl became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day. The platform confirmed that it had racked up over 5.5 million pre-saves before launch, breaking Swift’s own previous record.
With this milestone, Swift not only dethrones Adele’s legendary mark but also redefines what a blockbuster album release looks like in the streaming eral, balancing nostalgia, exclusivity, and modern fan engagement to near perfection.
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