Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, has topped the UK charts with the biggest first-week sales in seven years.
The 31-track double album shifted 270,000 UK chart units in seven days, eclipsing her previous personal best of 204,000 for her 2022 album, Midnights.
The last time an album sold more in its first week was in 2017, when Ed Sheeran’s Divide sold 670,000 copies.
Swift now matches Madonna as the female artist with the most UK number ones.
Both stars have achieved 12 chart-topping albums in their career. Only four acts can claim more – The Beatles (16), The Rolling Stones (14), Robbie Williams (14) and Elvis Presley (13).
Bruce Springsteen also has 12 number ones, meaning Swift has also drawn level with The Boss.
The Tortured Poets Department was released last Friday as a 16-track standalone album. Two hours later, Swift surprised fans by issuing a second volume, titled The Anthology, containing 15 extra tracks.
Taken as a whole, the project is a voyage through two tumultuous years of the star’s personal life, as she has navigated heartache, criticism and the trappings of fame.
It was met with mixed reviews. Pitchfork’s Olivia Horn said Swift was “largely retreading old territory”, an accusation echoed by Rolling Stone’s Larisha Paul, who said the star was “going through the motions while running in place”.
The same publication’s Rob Sheffield disagreed, calling the album a “wildly ambitious… cathartic confession” that could be the star’s “most personal album yet”. Helen Brown in the Independent agreed: “The whole album is a terrific reminder of the intense, personal connection Swift can conjure in song.”
Fans either didn’t mind about any lukewarm reviews or didn’t care. The album has broken dozens of records in its first week of release.
(BBC News)
