Beth Garrabrant
It’s hard to keep up with all the records that Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department album keeps breaking.
On April 22, the album became the most streamed in a single week in Spotify history; but as of April 24, it is the first album in Spotify history to hit 1 billion streams in a single week. It actually accomplished that in less than a week: the album’s only been out for five days.
A few of the other records the album has broken include being the first in Spotify history to rack up 300 million streams in a single day and the most-streamed album in a single day. Meanwhile, Taylor is now the most-streamed artist in a single day.
Over on the Billboard side of things, The Tortured Poets Department now ranks #5 on the list of the biggest sales weeks for any album in the modern era, which Billboard dates back to 1991, the advent of electronic sales tracking.
Adele still holds the record, with 3.378 million copies in one week for 25, followed by *NSYNC‘s No Strings Attached with 2.416 million, *NSYNC’s Celebrity with 1.878 million and Eminem‘s The Marshall Mathers LP with 1.76 million. Taylor’s album has now sold 1.6 million, but the week isn’t over yet.
In addition, Billboard reports that the album’s 31 tracks have racked up a combined 602.3 million streams, setting the record for highest single-week streams for an album by a female artist. The only other albums that have scored more streams in a week are both by Drake: 2018’s Scorpion and 2021’s Certified Lover Boy.
But Billboard notes that Taylor could still surpass Drake, who called her the “biggest gangster in the music game right now” on his new song “Taylor Made Freestyle.”
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