Taylor Swift's Midnights makes the biggest debut since Adele's 25

There's just something about an anti-hero with a knack for lyrical gold

By Hattie Lindert  |  October 31, 2022 | 2:13pm
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Taylor Swift's Midnights makes the biggest debut since Adele's 25
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Add another achievement to the long list of Taylor Swift’s music industry milestones: her tenth studio album Midnights is having the biggest first-week debut since Adele’s landmark confessional 25 debuted seven years ago, Billboard reports.

Swift’s vulnerable, synth-heavy musings on Midnights have clearly resonated beyond just her dedicated Swifties (the randomista mystery of a Swiftian album rollout also helps.) Midnights has sold 1.578 million equivalent album units since its October 21 debut—it’s also done the most physical vinyl sales since Luminate began tracking the number in 1991.

In addition to its arrival as the top-selling LP of the year, Midnights also sees Swift compete (and win) against herself. Although Midnights’ lyrics may find Swift playing a losing game against her worst tendencies, sales tell a very different story. Midnights is also now the largest-selling LP since Swift’s 2017 Reputation album.

Half a million vinyl sales contributed to the final number, buoyed by yet another clever marketing campaign urging fans to buy multiple copies with different (but connecting) art. If four different album variants are combined together, the back album covers form a clock—a detail Swift first excitedly noted in an Instagram video shared in September. Per Billboard, the 500,000 physical Midnights vinyls Swift had produced are “more than most artists can now manufacture, let alone sell.”

Midnights marks Swift’s eleventh No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 charts and catapults her into an elite category of success. Swift is now one of just six artists who have seen more than ten studio albums debut at No. 1—among her compatriots are the Beatles, Drake, Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, and Barbra Streisand. Swift and Streisand are now tied for the female performer with the most No. 1 albums on the chart.

Read our review of Midnights here.

 
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