5 Reasons Why Taylor Swift’s ‘Life of a Showgirl’ Was Able to Pull Off Such a Record-Breaking First Week

It’s official: The single-week marks for the most sales and album units for an album in the modern era (since 1991) now belong to Taylor Swift. Her new album The Life of a Showgirl debuts atop the Billboard 200 (dated. Oct. 18) with a staggering 4.002 million in equivalent album units (including streaming equivalent albums and track sale equivalent albums) — soaring past the 3.482 million posted by the previous record holder, Adele’s 25, during its debut week in 2015 — with 3,479,500 of that Showgirl number also coming in straight sales, besting the record 3.378 million sold by 25 in that same 2015 week. 

The numbers are absolutely stupefying — even when considering the massive totals Swift had previously been putting up this decade, with a trio of million-selling 2020s debut weeks already to her credit (for 2022’s Midnights, 2023’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) and 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department). That latter release, Swift’s most recent, had already blown past every other non-Adele album of the prior 20 years, with 1.914 million in first-week sales, and 2.61 million in first-week units. But now, Swift has put those already-jaw-dropping numbers firmly in her rearview, with Showgirl posting huge sales gains of 83% and units gains of 53% over its most immediate predecessor. 

How was Taylor Swift able to leapfrog not only her previous best single-week marks with her latest, but also the biggest weeks in modern chart history? Here are five ways she was able to make it happen with The Life of a Showgirl (beyond, of course, simply being Taylor Swift).