Looks like 1989 never goes out of style. Taylor Swift’s rerecorded 1989 (Taylor’s Version) topped “The Billboard 200,†posting 1.653 million album units — nearly 400,000 more than the original 1989 did back in 2014 (with 1.287 million). It’s her first “Taylor’s Version†album to outdo the original, on top of being Swift’s sixth million-copy debut and lucky-13th No. 1 album. In fact, it’s her best debut week ever — and the sixth best, period, since electronic-music sales tracking began in 1991.
Just over a year ago, Swift shocked the industry when Midnights opened with over 1 million album units — a feat that hadn’t been achieved in five years (not since she did it with reputation) and had started to seem impossible in the streaming era. She did that largely thanks to physical sales and replicated the success with 1989 (Taylor’s Version). This album sold 1.359 million physical copies alone with 15 different editions available across vinyl, CD, and cassette. Thanks to those, Swift broke the record for vinyl sales (again) with 693,000 copies and sold 554,000 CD copies, the most since Adele’s 25 in 2015. A fittingly retro strategy for a retro-tinted album.