Taylor Swift’s fifth studio album “1989” is still lording over the Billboard’s album charts as No. 1 for nine consecutive weeks and it appears that it will be staying there for a couple more weeks.
Although album sales has dropped by 55% this second week of January compared to the previous week, “1989” has already sold a total of nearly four million copies since it was officially released on October 27, 2014.
The sales figures of Taylor Swift’s latest album is considered incredible for today’s music era considering that in 2014, only two albums sold more than two million copies. One of those two albums is “1989,” and the other is “Frozen,” the soundtrack of the same titled hit Walt Disney animated movie.
During its ninth week on the Billboard’s album chart, “1989” sold 110,000 copies and 155,000 ‘units.’ Units is the new Billboard formula or term to include sales, streaming, and track equivalent albums, details the Rolling Stone.
Record-breaking
“1989” has sold 1.287 million copies right on its first week after its official release. It is the first and only album in 2014 that went straight to platinum. Its sales performance has put it on third spot of the all-time first week album sales record next only to “The Eminem Show” released in 2002, with 1.322 million copies sold, and Britney Spears’ “Oops! … I Did it Again” album released in 2000, with 1.319 million units moved.
The album also marks the first foray of Taylor Swift into pop music, from her humble beginnings as a country singer. But she is no longer new to earning platinum status for her album. Her previous two albums already did that.
And if there’s one record she can call her own, it’s the fact that Taylor Swift is the only music artist in history to sell one million copies in a single week over three different albums.
More than two years ago, her album “Red” sold 1.208 million copies on its first week. And two years before that, her “Speak Now” compilation moved 1.047 million copies on its first week.
“1989” is the 19th album in the 23-year history of Nielsen SoundScan, which details and monitors the sales of every album in the music industry, to record one million copies sold within a week. Nielsen SoundScan was established in 1991.
Taylor Swift already owns three of those 19 albums in the prestigious Nielsen SoundScan list including her latest and fifth studio album.
Great songwriter
Music industry observers believe that Taylor Swift showed how great a songwriter she is with her latest album. Her trademark writings are all over “1989,” her fifth album.
The singer has in fact written enough great songs for two or three music careers at a very young age of 24.
Taylor Swift turned 25 last December.