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Can you update her digital song sales and physical album sales? I think her digital downloads are to low for all of her album eras but especially for reputation, lover, folklore, evermore and the rerecordings, since almost all of them have platinum or multi platinum certifications in the US alone. Can you also add Midnights? That´d be nice and a little bit more realistic.
It's already realistic ! After 1989 era digital sales in all industry breaking down and streaming became the major indicator of artists popularity .
"Midnights" has the biggest pure album sales in first week since her "Reputation" with 1,14 million copies in the USA!
https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/taylor-swift-midnights-debut-number-one-billboard-200-albums-chart-1235163377/
Hello! Do you have any predictions for IFPI? Can we expect Taylor topping any list?
Thanks.
insane results, efffectively has eight 10 million sellers in the bag and Midnights sure to hit it in time
You were right about Midnights passing Evermore faster than I thought it would. Still don't think that Evermore gets enough love, but what a release for Midnights!
The wording should be slightly updated as Taylor is already almost 33 (not 'barely 32').
She truly become global with streaming. The way she is charting at top in her weak markets. Surely 1989 was huge globally but still most of it's sales came from USA. But streaming has taken her success to other level and she has penetrated markets where she was never huge. She simply looks poised to be second best seller female of all time. Topping madonna is possible if she keeps the run going when she hits 40 or so. Her fanbase is still in 20s with purchasing power Now. Now the impact of two women can't be compared as madonna wasn't rich daddy's girl as she was self made nor made safe music and took risks and revolutionized things for LGBT community. That can't be ever topped by someone singing shake it off Or about romeos.
There seems to be a discrepancy between Billboard's published pure sales figure for Midnights and what you have indicated in your table. It sold 1.14M in its first week and is projected to sell ~110k second week. Both combined wouldn't add to 1.4M as you have reported.
Taylor Swift’s Album Sales in the U.S.:
7.3 million, Fearless /
6.3 million, 1989 /
5.8 million, Taylor Swift /
4.8 million, Speak Now /
4.5 million, Red /
2.4 million, Reputation /
1.7 million, Folklore / (inflated to 2M here)
1.5 million, Lover /
1.1 million, The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (EP) /
913,000, Evermore / (inflated to 1M here)
774,000, Red (Taylor’s Version) /
596,000, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) /
376,000, Speak Now: World Tour Live CD + DVD /
369,000, Beautiful Eyes (EP)
Other notable discrepancies:
1.7 million, Folklore / (inflated to 2M here)
913,000, Evermore / (inflated to 1M here)
https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/taylor-swift-streaming-airplay-sales-before-midnights-chart-debut-ask-billboard-1235159369/
Official numbers of UK pure sales of "Midnight'" for first two weeks was 146,000+14,000=160,000 (inflated to 180,000 here)
After the success of Evermore, I thought surely her fame will slowdown. How wrong was I. It is amazing how long she managed to remain relevant, consistently being at the top. The way she transition her music is also so smooth and smartly done. From Country - Country Pop - Teen Pop - Electronic Pop. No wonder she has such longevity.
Hi Chartfan!
These aren't discrepancies - just different sets of data. All our numbers are expressed in net shipments. In a case like this one, we estimated the minimum amount of copies net shipped by the end of its first week, which we expect to be at about 1.25 times the number of copies sold to consumers in developped markets, and closer to 1 in others (as there are no retailers selling physical versions of this album so far).
About Folklore / Evermore, they were certified at 2xP and 1xP last week by the RIAA. As these albums are well over 3m and 2m SPS, it implies they were certified on the back of their pure sales alone (it's still a label's choice).
While that feels weird considering the Luminate figures, we should keep in mind that Billboard introduced rules to exclude bundles one month into Folklore's run. These RIAA awards confirm 2020's IFPI numbers, that had Folklore and Evermore 250,000 and 105,000 units higher than our former estimates, respectively. It's worth considering that while the Billboard can introduce rules to make sure their weekly chart reflect organic and direct consumption, like counting 1 unit when someone buys 2 or 3 copies of an album (it was possible to purchase up to 4 units of Folklore / Evermore on her website), the 2-3 purchases are still regarded as perfectly valid by both the RIAA and the IFPI.
What happened here is that a good chunk of Folklore / Evermore units sold as part of bundles or with multiple units got excluded by Billboard, and then are removed from Luminate's total, leading that total to be incomplete, while the RIAA/IFPI portray the full picture.
Have you applied this method to all artists? When was this change implemented? I think for some artists the Billboard figures are still reflected. For instance, Adele's 30 was certified 3x platinum by RIAA way back in January 2022. It has reportedly sold ~1.7M physical copies to date, with ~2.5M total units.
Given this new information, your previous remark about 30's sales figures, namely, "The figure is still disappointed (sic), as shown by the 1-million gap to IFPI’s annual figure, which highlights that the album sales are below expectations, with many initial shipments yet to be sold, or returned, 7 months after the initial release" seems to be misguided as this could be significantly explained by the multiple units that you have just now decided to include.
