Will Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Break Adele’s Single-Week Sales Record? 

The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated Oct. 18, we look at the jaw-dropping numbers already being put up by the highly anticipated new album from the biggest pop star in the universe, and what worlds it still has left to conquer. 

Taylor Swift, The Life of a Showgirl (Republic): For most of the last decade, it seemed not only unbeatable, it seemed un-nearable. From the time Adele set the modern-era single-week sales record in late 2015 with a jaw-plummeting 3.378 million, up until this very week, no other artist had even gotten in her general neighborhood — with only one artist even clearing the one-million mark in sales over that time period, doing so with four separate albums. (The “modern era” begins in 1991, when Luminate — then SoundScan — began electronically tracking data.)

That one artist, of course, was Taylor Swift. After Reputation debuted with 1.22 million in sales in 2017, her next few releases debuted in the six digits, as she started making her albums immediately available for streaming on DSPs. But then, even with the albums on streaming, she cleared the million mark in sales again in 2022 with Midnights (1.14 million), then in 2023 with 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (1.36 million) and in 2024 with The Tortured Poets Department (1.91 million). She was getting closer, but she still wasn’t particularly close — that TTPD mark may have been several times bigger than any sales week posted by any other artist this decade, but it only got her about 57% of the way to 25. Adele’s mark still looked safe for the foreseeable future.  

As it turns out, it might have only been safe for one more year. On Saturday, Billboard reported that Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, had debuted with 2.7 million in sales in just its first day— already blowing well past Tortured Poets, and getting 80% of the way to 25. Those numbers have steadily increased over the course of the week, and as of Billboard’s latest update, have swelled to 3.2 million — fewer than 200,000 copies away from passing an Adele mark no other artist could even see with a telescope, with two days still to go in the tracking week.  

One related all-time mark of Adele’s has already fallen to Swift this week: Showgirl has posted 3.5 million in equivalent album units (EAUs), a mark which also factors in streaming equivalent albums (SEAs) and track equivalent albums (TEAs) — though because none of the album’s songs were available for digital purchase individually, Showgirl has not amassed any of the latter. Because 25 was not initially available in full on streaming — only its lead single, “Hello,” was on DSPs at that point — its debut EAU number (3.482 million) was only 104,000 higher than its sales number, with that difference largely coming from TEAs. With Swift’s album also breaking records on DSPs, it has already amassed 300,000 in SEAs, allowing Showgirl to pass 25 in overall units with two days to spare in the tracking week.  

Will the sales record ultimately fall too? It could be close: While in the 25 era, a greater number of debut-week purchases were still made in-store, in 2025, a much higher percentage comes from pre-orders, with fans purchasing multiple different variants of the album. (A full 23 of those were available pre-release, across vinyl, CD, CD boxed set and cassette, some including additional collectibles, with two of the boxed sets even coming with a cardigan and a crewneck, respectively.) Hence, while Adele’s 3.378 million number was picked up a little more gradually throughout its week — she was only up to 2.433 million by day four — Swift’s Showgirl number is much top-heavier, “only” growing by 500,000 over the four days of reporting following that first-day number.  

Still, it seems likely that Showgirl will ultimately get past the 3.378 million mark. It’s already gotten a mid-week boost from four new CD variant releases, only available for a limited time, which each included unique cover art and two unique alternate versions of tracks from the original album. (One of the CD boxed sets, featuring the cardigan, was also restocked on her webstore.) As Swift continues on the promotional trail, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Apple Music’s The Zane Lowe Show in the past couple days, it would not be surprising to see more appearances to come, and possibly more new variants to be released, over the next last couple days of the week, as Adele’s record appears more vulnerable than we’d ever imagined it would be again.