How Taylor Swift has stayed at the top of the charts with 'The Tortured Poets Department'

In early June, when Taylor Swift Department of Tormented Poets enjoyed its seventh week atop the Billboard 200, friend and collaborator Lana Del Rey offered a simple explanation for Swift's stardom in BBC News. “He's told me so many times that he wants it more than anyone,” Del Rey said. “And how amazing – he gets exactly what he wants.”

This week, Swift secured her eighth straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, tying Folklore and they only come back 1989 and Fearless (11 weeks each) for the most weeks at No. 1 of any of her career-high 14. TTPD it's also Morgan Wallen's first album in a year One thing at a timehas spent at least two months at the top of the chart and is the first album by a woman to spend its first eight weeks at No.1 since Whitney Houston'small Whitney spent the first 11 weeks at the top in 1987. It also extends Swift's record for most weeks spent atop the Billboard 200 to 77 — 10 weeks more than second-place artist Elvis Presley (67).

While Swift is used to releasing record-breaking albums, what's different this time is not how it has, but for how long — and when. While she—and most artists across genres—often bolsters first-week sales with multiple vinyl variants, signed CD copies, and deluxe digital exclusives, Swift has expanded that release plan far beyond her initial release. Department of Tormented Poets.

It is a relatively new strategy. Then again, rarely does an artist have such a huge and loyal fan base ready and willing to turn on as needed. And while the record-breaking Eras tour and Swift's initial luxury launch, The Anthology – which arrived a few hours after the 16-track original and which went on to stream well – certainly helped keep TTPDstrategic drops of limited-time bonus editions, from audio editions to first draft phone notes, kept her physical and digital sales high.

In his first week of follow-up, TTPD achieved 1.914 million total album sales in the United States (physical formats and digital downloads), according to Luminate. That number alone translates to $38.3 million — not including the 891.37 million official on-demand streams, which accounted for an additional 683,000 equivalent streaming album units. The album continued to perform well for its next three weeks, even as sales naturally dipped — until its fifth week, when Swift supercharged the album by releasing six bonus digital albums and a new CD variant on her online store, including of early draft versions of Phone Notes , recordings of “Live From Paris” and an acoustic version of “But Daddy I Love Him”, all available for a limited time in the United States. In addition, a variety of five CD offerings – either signed or deluxe edition – were shipped after the replenishment. Fans were quick to snap up the new releases, generating an estimated $2.4 million in sales revenue — a huge jump from the previous week's total of nearly $801,000 and helping keep the album at No. 1.

In the same week, Billie Eilish released her third album, Hit with hard and soft. It arrived with a handful of physical offerings, including nine vinyl variants and four CD editions, plus three deluxe digital editions: a standard digital album with 10 bonus single vocal tracks of the album's 10 songs, a version with 10 bonus sped-up versions, and a version with 10 slowed-down and reverb versions. Hit me It eventually debuted at No. 2, but gave Eilish the best first week number of her career with 339,000 units.

The contest resulted in a major coup for both artists: For the first time in eight years, two albums had earned more than 300,000 equivalent album units in a single week in the United States, according to Luminate. (by Drake Views and Beyoncé Lemonade both cleared 300,000 units in one week on the May 21, 2016 chart).

Swift continued her strategy of extensive release last week as her Eras tour hit the UK. In TTPDIn its eighth week of availability, it made the bonus tracks “Live From Paris” and the first phone notes available again for a limited time, limited to the UK market, which once again led to a weekly increase in sales — and helped preserve TTPD topping the charts in this country.

Swift's dominance was certainly felt by her peers, who themselves released deluxe editions and bonus editions of their albums in their respective first weeks of availability, hoping to boost their own first-week numbers. Fans of these artists felt it too. Billie Eilish fans, for example, noted that Swift's fifth week — when she released the first batch of additional releases — coincided with the release of Eilish's Hit with hard and soft. And Charli XCX fans, hoping to see the pop star land her first UK No.1 album Brat last week, he expressed his disappointment that Swift happened to release the second wave of extra releases the week Charli's album came out. (In the United States, Brat debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 3, earning Charli the highest debut of her career.) As one user wrote on X: “I didn't want to believe it, but…Taylor really could be chart-obsessed… ».

Some industry sources across the board feel similarly, lamenting Advertising sign that Swift's flood of releases doesn't just feed superfans, it pushes others out of the spotlight — and the kind of recognition and prestige that a No. 1 album can provide. Charli hinted at the online conversation when she told a sold-out crowd at The Shrine in Los Angeles on May 15: “I just feel like the art is shining, you know what I'm saying? I'm really grateful for the people who were there from the jump and understood my vision… What's the next song? Oh, it's “Sympathy Is a Knife.” Interesting.”

After the event, fans pointed out his issues Brat — especially a song like “Rewind,” in which Charli questions her relationship with fame and her own art, even Advertising sign diagrams nominally. ON fan wrote on X: “There is of course an irony that an album full of meditations on the push-pull relationship of the artist and their craft to success was bumped to the top spot by an artist selling their 304th edition of their album for another week at the top of the charts…”. However, as Audacy Orlando on-air talent Clint Robinson said in a TikTok clip, “The problem is that Taylor Swift has amassed a literal army of fans who buy her remixes, who want to stream her albums, who they want to see her be No. 1. They care about that because she does too. And you want to know why? Because she's an incredible businesswoman.”

Given its success, Swift's rollout strategy could become a blueprint for others to follow to maintain their chart momentum. Meanwhile, some industry insiders are wondering when it will end, with one industry source comparing the current TTPD is released in fast fashion.

Ahead, fans look at Sabrina Carpenter's current dominance as she takes the No. 2 and No. 3 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Please Please Please” and “Espresso,” respectively. Carpenter – a close friend of Swift's who has opened for the star on some Eras tours – will release her new album, Short n' Sweet, on August 23. Although the pair are openly supportive of each other, and despite Carpenter's album being nearly two months away, her fans are still far from relaxed. As someone posted on X: “Taylor Swift has a mega deluxe acoustic version ready for her ass.”