Taylor Swift’s Reputation finally debuted on streaming services on Friday, after a three-week lockout – and the album is already making an impact on the format.
Midweek chart figures show Reputation (Big Machine/Virgin EMI) at No.15 overall, but it’s the third most-streamed album of the week so far, with 1,950 streaming ‘sales’ (and that’s with one day of Spotify data yet to be collated). Only Ed Sheeran’s streaming monster ÷ (Asylum/Atlantic) and Michael Bublé’s seasonal Christmas (Reprise) have more streams this week, as curious fans check out the album.
Overall sales of Reputation are up 3.9% week-on-week to a total of 8,404 so far. Physical remains the album’s most popular format, with 5,551 sales. Reputation has more than twice as many streams as the No.1 midweek album, U2’s Songs Of Experience (Island) and Swift has four songs in the UK Combined Tracks Top 200.
On the individual services, Apple Music subscribers seem particularly keen on Swift – perhaps to be expected due to her previous association with the service. Reputation is the No.1 album on Apple Music and all 15 tracks from the album were in the Apple Music Top 200 as of Monday evening.
Swift’s current single …Ready For It? – already available on streaming services – was most popular at No.55, although the second most popular track is the Ed Sheeran/Future collaboration End Game – tipped as a future official single. They’re followed by Gorgeous (No.66), Look What You Made Me Do (No.66), I Did Something Bad (No.74), Don’t Blame Me (No.86), Delicate (No.88), Getaway Car (No.108), So It Goes (No.135), King Of My Heart (No.144), This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (No.150), Dress (No.153), Dancing With Our Hands Tied (No.154), New Year’s Day (No.155) and Call It What You Want (No.164).
Apple rolled out the red carpet for Reputation’s arrival on Friday. Spotify gave it a rather more lukewarm welcome, but eight of the album’s tracks still feature in Spotify’s Global Top 200 for December 3. Swift’s top ranked song is Look What You Made Me Do (No.62, 977,268 streams) followed by …Ready For It? (No.105, 772,379), Gorgeous (No.121, 668,566), End Game (No.132, 640,888), I Did Something Bad (No.157, 571,076), Don’t Blame Me (No.179, 534,024), Delicate (No.189, 516,925) and Call It What You Want (No.191, 511,208).
Last year, Spotify’s George Ergatoudis told Music Week that artists that choose not to work with Spotify can receive less support than those that do.
Swift’s decision to window the album on streaming reignited the industry debate on whether such a move could boost physical and download sales, or alienate fans who’d converted to streaming. Reputation debuted at No.1 in the UK and US, where it racked up enormous first week sales. It holds at No.1 Stateside for a third week this week.
Swift plays Capital's Jingle Bell Ball at the O2 Arena on Sunday.
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