Taylor Swift has scored the biggest US sales week since her own Reputation album in November 2017.
Swift’s seventh album, Lover, opened in the US with 867,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music. It was also the biggest overall week for an album since Reputation.
It was the first Swift album to debut on streaming platforms upon release, though 78.3% of its total (679,000) in the US was still down to pure sales.
In the UK, Lover opened at No.1 with 53,015 sales, according to the Official Charts Company. Streaming accounted for 33.7% of the total. The album has also been making an impact globally.
The rapprochement with streaming services such as Spotify has inevitably impacted on Swift’s stellar sales. Reputation opened in November 2017 with 83,648 sales in the UK and 1.238m units in the US, after it was held off streaming for some weeks. US sales for week one were 1.216m, so Lover is down 44% compared to Reputation.
Lover benefitted from multiple physical deluxe editions, which should deliver a high value result that makes up for some of the sales decline.
The album is Swift’s sixth US No.1, while in the UK she has four chart-toppers.
The US streaming start of 175,000 SEA units (226m on-demand audio streams) is the second biggest streaming week ever for a female artist. Ariana Grande’s Thank U, Next opened with 228,000 streaming equivalent units.
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