In the first five weeks of 2024, Taylor Swift won two Grammy Awards (including a record-breaking fourth for album of the year, for Midnights), announced a new studio album (onstage at the Grammys!), got her ninth No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart with the revived Lover hit “Cruel Summer,” topped Billboard’s annual Power 100 list for the first time, and saw two of her albums surpass the 2 million U.S. sales mark: 1989 (Taylor’s Version) and Lover.
1989 (Taylor’s Version), released in 2023, jumped past the 2 million mark – counting only traditional album sales (purchases of CD, vinyl, cassette and digital download copies) – in the week ending Jan. 11, according to Luminate. Meanwhile, Lover, released in 2019, flew past the 2 million threshold in the week ending Jan. 18. They mark her ninth and 10th albums to sell at least 2 million in the U.S.
Swift’s top-selling album in the U.S. is Fearless, with 7.286 million copies sold.
Plus, on the latest Top Album Sales chart, the former No. 1 Lover locks up its 200th nonconsecutive week on the tally, as it rises 8-4 on the list dated Feb. 10. It sold 8,000 copies in the week ending Feb. 1 (the tracking week captured on the Feb. 10-dated chart) – up 21% compared to its sales in the previous week. Only two other Swift albums have spent at least 200 weeks on Top Album Sales: her self-titled album, with 286 weeks (and counting), and Fearless, with 224 weeks.
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.
Elsewhere on the new Top Album Sales chart, Grateful Dead score its first No. 1 as Dave’s Picks, Volume 49: Frost Amphitheatre, Stanford U., Palo Alto, CA (4/27/85 & 4/28/85) debuts atop the list. It sold 21,000 in its first week. Rock supergroup The Smile sees its new album Wall of Eyes starts at No. 2 (14,500) while Swift’s chart-topping 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is steady at No. 3 (10,000; down 9%). Green Day’s Saviors slips 1-5 in its second week with 7,000 (down 82%), while Alkaline Trio’s Blood, Hair and Eyeballs bows at No. 6 with just over 6,000. Stray Kids’ chart-topping ROCK-STAR is stationary at No. 7 with 6,000 (down 2%) and Swift’s former leader Midnights falls 5-9 with nearly 6,000 (down 13%).
Two debuts close out the top 10, as Static-X’s Project Regeneration, Volume 2 launches at No. 9 with nearly 5,000, and Future Islands’ People Who Aren’t There Anymore bows at No. 10 with 4,000.
In the week ending Feb. 1, there were 1.118 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 1.3% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 827,000 (up 0.5%) and digital albums comprised 291,000 (up 3.6%).
There were 404,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Feb. 1 (up 3.9% week-over-week) and 418,000 vinyl albums sold (down 2.4%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 2.108 million (down 31% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 2.413 million (down 46.4%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 5.915 million (down 36.1% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 4.545 million (down 40.2%) and digital album sales total 1.370 million (down 17.7%).