Taylor Swift defeats Arctic Monkeys in race for UK number one
Taylor Swift has dominated the charts yet again, even beating The Car by Arctic Monkeys to the top spot in the UK, reaffirming her position as one of her generation’s most commercially successful artists.
For the 11th time in her career, Swfit has debuted in the number one spot on the Billboard 200 chart with colossal first-week sales, as Billboard reports. Her new album Midnights has shipped over a million copies since it was released on October 21st, which included more than half a million vinyl sales and has been partially credited to the array of sleeve designs offered that encouraged fans to purchase multiple copies.
Selling 1.578 million in equivalent album units makes it the biggest-selling record in nearly seven years, boasting the most physical sales since Luminate started logging them in 1991.
Notably, the last album to achieve greater first-week sales was Adele’s 25, which debuted with 3.482 million units back in December 2015. Currently, Swift is tied with Barbara Streisand for the most number one albums by female artists. She is the sixth musician with more than ten number one LPs, joining the likes of Streisand, The Beatles, Drake, Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen.
Further reflecting the commercial power of Taylor Swift is that Midnights also holds the largest sales week for an album since Swift’s 2017 opus, Reputation.
Arctic Monkeys’ long-awaited return, The Car, was unsurprisingly in last week’s top ten, with it matching the band’s previous chart best of number six with 2013’s AM. However, on Friday, Swift broke their chart-topping run in the UK, with Midnights going to the top spot ahead on The Car. This makes it the band’s first album to miss out on the top spot.
After a year when people have seriously questioned Taylor Swift’s artistry, the case for her detractors is slimming, as every album she releases seems to break new records.
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