Taylor Swift is the first woman to have four albums in the top ten at once
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As much as Taylor Swift can be annoying, one thing she’s right about is how absurd it is that music artists don’t typically own their master recordings. So I support her re-recording her back catalogue. She’s been operating at a breakneck speed since 2020, releasing Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights, along with three re-records of earlier work. This is obviously a strategy to devalue the masters that currently belong to Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. Her most recent re-release, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), hasn’t gotten as much buzz as Red (Taylor’s Version) or Fearless (Taylor’s Version). At least it hasn’t felt that way to me and I would consider myself adjacent to, if not a part of, the Swiftiverse. But people are still buying it, and now Taylor is setting another industry record. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled–whatever she may pretend to the contrary, she cares deeply about awards, sales numbers, and industry recognition. She’s now the first woman to have four albums on the Billboard Top 10 at the same time, and one of only three artists to do it, period. The other two are Herb Alpert (of all people!) and Prince. She also has the most Number One albums in history for any woman, besting Barbra Streisand.
Taylor Swift is setting some high chart benchmarks with the release of her “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” album, becoming the first woman to have four albums on Billboard’ Top 10 list at once.
Her latest release debuted at No. 1 with the biggest numbers of the year so far for any release. According to Billboard, that’s the first time a woman has done that in the entire six-decade history of there being an album chart — and she’s one of only three artists to ever accomplish the feat.
Swift also set a record for the female artist with the most No. 1 albums in history: She now has a dozen, moving ahead of Barbra Streisand, with whom she was formerly tied with 11 each.
“Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” bowed on top of the Billboard 200 with 716,000 album-equivalent units. That number ensured that it wasn’t even a photo finish in this year’s opening-week derby, as the previous best figure was held by Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” which debuted in March with 501,000.
The other three albums Swift has in her triumphant quadrilogy in the top 10 are 2022’s “Midnights” at No. 5, 2019’s “Lover” at No. 7 and 2020’s “Folklore” at No. 10.
In the current music ecosystem, Taylor is one of a vanishingly small number of artists who still sells a lot of records (along with Morgan Wallen apparently, a person whose name alone triggers my gag reflex, to say nothing of his music). It’s impressive that Lover is still charting so high after four years. I wonder, though, if the numbers for Speak Now (TV) are somewhat inflated by concert tickets and a shadowy little gambit I’ve caught onto in recent years. I sound like a tinfoil hat person, but go with me on this: when I went to see Lana Del Rey at the Hollywood Bowl in 2019, I apparently opted into getting a CD of her album Norman F–king Rockwell mailed to my house as part of the ticket price. The album had just been released that summer. I do not remember opting into this at all but it arrived anyway! Thank you, Ticketmaster! That album is a masterpiece so I’m happy I was hoodwinked into getting a physical copy. But then, a similar thing happened when Harry Styles’ second solo album came out. I bought tickets to his tour but that time I remember opting in to getting a CD of Fine Line added to the ticket price and it was mailed to me sometime later. I think those concert ticket add-on albums get counted as album sales–why wouldn’t they? My point is, given how massive Taylor’s Eras tour is, and just how many stadiums she’s selling out all over the world, it would not surprise me at all if there is a covert or overt Speak Now (TV) CD add-on with her concert tickets. If anyone reading this was lucky enough to survive “several bear attacks” via Ticketmaster to get Eras tour tickets, please let me know if I’m onto something. But even without my concert-ticket conspiracy theory, Taylor has an extremely dedicated fan base who will happily buy an album where most of the songs on it are ones we’ve been listening to for 13 years and sound nearly identical to the originals.
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