Billboard reports that Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ has achieved 3.5 million equivalent units in its first week in the United States, according to Luminate. Of that total, 3.2 million correspond to traditional sales – physical and digital formats -, while the remaining 300,000 units come from streaming consumption of the songs on the album.
Has Taylor Swift surpassed Adele’s ’25’ record, so far the best-selling album in its first week in history? Yes, but with nuances.
Taylor breaks Adele’s ’25’ record by equivalent units, but not for pure sales. In its first week, ’25’ sold 3.378 million physical and digital copies, a figure that no one has yet surpassed. Swift would need to sell 178,000 more copies to surpass Adele’s traditional sales record, and she could do it, since the counting week is not over yet: sales from today, and probably from yesterday, would still have to be added (the tracking week runs from Friday to Thursday). In the next few days we will see it.
As for Adele’s global figures, ’25’ accumulated 3.482 million equivalent units by including, in addition to traditional sales, track purchases and streams. In the case of ‘The Life of a Showgirl’, all additional equivalent units come from streaming, as its songs are not available for individual purchase.
These data show that the industry of 2025 is not the same as that of 2015: Taylor Swift’s streaming figures are especially relevant in this case, since the number of Premium subscribers to Spotify has increased stratospherically over the last decade. It should be remembered that ’25’ was not available on Spotify during the first seven months after its release: to listen to it, you basically had to buy the album in stores. But it is also true that the influence of streaming today is much greater than ten years ago.
To break Adele’s record, Swift has helped herself to a generous assortment of special editions of ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ released during the week through her website, exactly 29 editions. Before the October 3 release, there were already 23 different physical versions, including CD, vinyl and cassette. To these have been added four new CD variants – each with different covers and additional songs – and two digital editions, one standard and another exclusive to iTunes with an extra video. Will he have any other aces up his sleeve?
