This is a tremendous achievement, unprecedented for any artist, an expert told The Washington Post. It can only be done by someone who brings to the table exactly what Swift does: dumb, dedicated fan base, savvy social media strategy, and a relentless marketing machine. .
“It’s a really great album and she’s one of the biggest music stars in the world.” We’ve pushed everything out. You can’t go wrong with that combination.”
Following the tracking week from October 21st to October 27th, the album “Midnights” has the most Top 10 songs on the list ever. That’s a record previously held by Drake’s 2021 album Certified Lover Boy, which has her nine hits in 2021. Top 10.
“Anti-Hero,” a song about Swift’s inner battle, topped the list with nearly 59.7 million streams and 32 million on-air radio impressions. Followed by “Lavender Haze,” a breezy song about love’s all-encompassing brilliance that earned her 41.4 million streams, and “Maroon,” her 37.6 million views revisiting a broken relationship. is.
To create the chart, Billboard takes into account a large number of indicators, each with varying weights. These metrics include digital and physical sales, streams and radio broadcast impressions. But that standard has changed over the years, especially in the last decade, as streaming has become more revenue-generating.
“Streaming has changed everything. It has changed not only music consumption behavior, but how music is made, how albums are conceived and sequenced, and even how songs are written and produced,” says New York University music business executive. Larry Miller, professor at the University’s Steinhardt School.
Major streaming companies such as Spotify and Apple Music have made vast amounts of music available to vast numbers of users who are increasingly distant from purchasing physical copies. But while streaming services have made it easier for people to play their favorite music on repeat, they’ve also increased the amount of songs and records available for streaming from an almost infinite number of artists.
“What Taylor Swift has achieved in this era of more than 70,000 new tracks being released every day is a huge achievement,” said Miller. Even if someone could correctly guess that it was set to be one of the albums, this is a truly remarkable and historic achievement.” By one estimate, as many as 100,000 tracks are added to music streaming services every day. Uploaded.
Even before ‘Midnights’ was even scheduled for release, the album seemed destined for success. For months, fans have been hoping for another re-recorded Swift album, with many looking for an Easter egg showing “Speak Now” or a “Taylor’s Version” version of “1989.” To what seemed like a complete surprise, Swift instead announced an all-new record coming out in August.
The artist took to social media to promote his work “Fear and Sweet Dreams”, sharing clue-filled clips by track name for 13 consecutive nights. Spotify crashed as fans flooded the app to listen. Swift has also released four different colored vinyl and CD versions of the album, as well as a Target Limited Edition.
“Taylor released different versions of the album and reached out to a sizeable fan base directly on social media and said, ‘Hey, this is all available.’ They all said, ‘Great!’ They’re very loyal to her, whatever she puts out,” Knopper said.
In its various editions, “Midnights” sold a whopping 1.4 million physical copies in its debut week. This is her most since Adele’s “25” in 2015 sold her 3.4 million copies. Since Luminate began tracking her music sales in 1991, her one album has been released in a week.
“She’s one of the few superstar artists in the music business today who can straddle both worlds: the old-school world of radio plays and physical albums, and the new-school world of streaming,” Knopper said. added.
As for Swift, 10 seems to be set over 13 as her go-to lucky number.
“10 out of 10 of the Hot 100 ??? With the tenth album??? I’m in a shambles,” she wrote twitter.
According to Billboard, the full Top 10 list is:
- “Antihero”
- “Lavender Haze”
- “Maroon”
- “Snow on the Beach” feat. Lana Del Rey
- “Midnight Rain”
- “Bejeweled”
- “question…?”
- “You’re alone, Kid.”
- “Karma”
- “Vigilante S—“
Travis M. Andrews contributed to this report.
