Taylor Swift's new LP, Department of Tormented Poets, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, making it her 14th studio album to reach the top spot. The album achieved massive first-week sales, debuting with 2.61 million US equivalent album units in the week ending April 25, as Advertising sign References. Of that number, 1.914 million units were traditional album sales – with vinyl purchases alone accounting for a whopping 859,000 – and on-demand streams totaled 891.34 million units. Swift is now tied with Jay-Z for the most No. 1 albums among solo artists. (The record for most No. 1s of all time is still held by the Beatles, who have a total of 19.)
With these numbers, Department of Tormented Poets officially has the longest streaming week for an album ever. It's also the second-biggest week for an album overall since the Billboard 200 began counting units in December 2014, the third-biggest sales week since Luminate began tracking sales electronically in 1991, and the biggest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era, he says Advertising sign.
Swift announced Department of Tormented Poets during her acceptance speech at the 2024 Grammy Awards for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnight. The new album features contributions from Post Malone, Florence Welch, Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, Laura Sisk, Glenn Kotche and many more.
A few days after the release of the new album on April 19 (along with the second part of the surprise, The Anthology), Swift broke her own record for most weekly sales of a vinyl album, with 700,000 copies. Across all formats, there were approximately 1.5 million sold in the US after three days
Department of Tormented Poets it also became the first album to reach one billion Spotify streams in its first week. Swift only had herself to beat, as she previously held the record Midnight.
After liberation Department of Tormented Poets and The AnthologySwift shared a black-and-white music video for “Fortnight,” co-starring Post Malone, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles.
