Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ makes history by selling 4 million copies in first week

NEW YORK (AP) — That’s show business for you! Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” has officially sold 4.002 million equivalent album units — which includes album sales and streaming activity — in its first week in the U.S. That is the biggest first week in modern music history; at least, according to Luminate, the industry data and analytics company that began tracking sales in 1991.

Swift broke the record set by Adele’s “25,” which sold 3.378 million copies in its first week in 2015 in the U.S.

“The Life of a Showgirl” was released Oct. 3. In its first week, pure album sales totaled 3,479,500 copies.

She’s also become the solo artist with the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, with 15. She was previously tied with Drake and Jay-Z, who each have 14.

Swift is now just behind The Beatles, who boast of 19 No. 1 albums.

She is no stranger to breaking records, and when it comes to “The Life of a Showgirl,” the history-making started immediately. In its first day of release, the album sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales, breaking her record for most first week sales… in one day.

Her last album, 2024’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” amassed 2.61 million equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week.

Also, according to Luminate, “The Life of a Showgirl” broke the record for the most copies of a vinyl album sold in a single week in the U.S., with 1.2 million copies in its first day.

The previous record holder was “The Tortured Poets Department,” which sold 859,000 copies on vinyl in its first week.

Vinyl variants move the needle

One of the reasons Swift has seen so much success is that she released her record in several different variants. Those include multiple editions specific to Target — three CDs titled “It’s Frightening,” “It’s Rapturous” and “It’s Beautiful,” as well as an exclusive vinyl release, “The Crowd Is Your King.”

There are a number of other vinyl variants as well: “The Tiny Bubble in Champagne Collection,” “The Baby That’s Show Business Collection,” “The Shiny Bug Collection,” and the standard LP and cassette, in “sweat and vanilla perfume Portofino orange vinyl.”

New Disney+ projects will keep Swift at the top

The news of Swift’s record-breaking sales arrived just after “Good Morning America” revealed Monday that she’ll have two new projects at Disney+. That’s a six-episode, behind-the-scenes docuseries about her landmark “Eras Tour” titled “Taylor Swift ‘ The Eras Tour ‘ The End of an Era.”

The first two episodes of her docuseries will premiere Dec. 12.

And that is not to be confused with the second, titled “Taylor Swift ‘ The Eras Tour ‘ The Final Show,” a concert film now with the inclusion of “The Tortured Poets Department” section. The 2024 album was incorporated into her three-and-a-half-hour performance following its release. It was filmed in Vancouver.

That differs from 2023’s “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” film, which was compiled from several Swift shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, a suburb of Los Angeles and arrived ahead of “The Tortured Poets Department.”