Taylor Swift made history in more ways than one this week with the release of her latest album, Department of Tormented Poets. But perhaps the most impressive of all the records it set was first-week vinyl sales for the album, which reached 859,000 – by far the biggest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era, surpassing the second-biggest week with more from 160,000 units.
This second biggest week, by the way? The debut frame of her latest release, 1989 (Taylor Edition)which sold 693,000 vinyl copies in the week ending November 2, 2023. In fact, Swift has the four biggest vinyl sales weeks in history — and all in the last 18 months — and six of the top eight, reflecting not only her explosive industry-wide popularity for the format, but its own evolving strategy and emphasis on physical media and fan-focused collectibles.
For Tormented poets, Swift released six different vinyl versions (in addition to nine CD and four cassette versions), four of which were widely available and two of which were exclusives, one signed reissue through her own web store, and one through Target. Of the four widely available, each included a different bonus track, and each has separately sold enough copies to top the vinyl sales charts for the week: Manuscript version (342,000); The Bolter version (85,000); The Black Dog version (79,000); and Albatross edition (62,000).
This is a continuation of the strategy she has been implementing since, for lack of a better phrase, her pandemic albums, Folklore and Forever. And it's a brilliant success story of how artists have taken advantage of vinyl's resurrection as not only material art but also as a commodity, as the format has continued to grow for 18 consecutive years, reaching 43.2 million US sales in 2023 , to the tune of $1.35 billion in revenue, according to the RIAA.
Swift's career, in terms of album production, has grown along with this trend. Her self-titled debut album was released 18 years ago in October 2006, a year when US vinyl sales were just $23.7 million. At that point, vinyl was such a niche market (and Swift was such a young artist) that for Taylor Swift and her second album, Fearless, Swift didn't even release vinyl versions until May 2016, when they sold 500 copies and 1,000 copies, respectively, in their first week of availability. Until the 2010s Speak now, Swift's star power was much more formidable, but vinyl was still pretty niche. all U.S. vinyl sales that year grossed $124.2 million, according to the RIAA, and Speak now it moved 500 copies in the first week.
Redin 2012, it was a real big moment for Swift in terms of her pop career, and the vinyl business itself had added nearly $100 million in value in just two years, to $213.3 million. Red it sold 1,000 copies in its first week on the format. Two years later, when it was released 1989, the vinyl industry had added another $100 million annually, and standard vinyl sold 11,000 copies in its first week of availability. For 2017 Reputationa slightly delayed street date release resulted in 9,000 sales in what was technically its second week of availability, with the Swift still remaining on standard vinyl selection.
It was for Lover that Swift's strategy initially began to change, as she began experimenting with vinyl offerings beyond the standard black record, and the numbers really started to jump. When the album was released in November 2019, it was as a colored double vinyl, sold exclusively at Target, which helped push its first-week number to 18,000 copies — at the time, the biggest vinyl sales week by a woman since Adele 25 during the week of Christmas 2015 (reflected on the January 9, 2016 chart). By 2019, vinyl sales in the U.S. had reached half a billion dollars — and the real leap for the format was on the horizon.
The data for Folklore — 9,000 copies in the first week — at first it may seem like regression. But the pandemic brought two competing trends: both an aggressive surge in vinyl's popularity and massive industry-wide supply chain issues related to its production. From Folklore was a surprise on July 24, 2020, the vinyl was delayed until November. but Swift sold digital-physical bundles when the album was first released, meaning digital sales were calculated during the July release week, but when the vinyl finally came out in November – first week availability tracked here – sales were not counted as vinyl as they were already counted as digital. (The graph rules have changed since then and are no longer counted together.) So while FolkloreThe album's first week in wide release saw 615,000 album sales, there is no clear way to determine how many of these sales included vinyl copies. and the November first-week figure of 9,000 copies represents the number purchased that week, when many of Swift's die-hard fans were receiving the album, though it wasn't tracked that way.
However, Folklore was Swift's first album to really turn to the trend of vinyl as a collectable, with seven alternative covers in addition to the standard black pressing available. Forever would follow suit, with another pandemic-related delay helping its first week: The album was released in December 2020, but the vinyl came out in May 2021, allowing for five months of bankable pre-orders and with a collector's tweak: It was available in two green color variants and a Target-exclusive red color, resulting in vinyl sales of a then-record 102,000 in its first week of availability.
What followed was furious reissues of her older albums, as well as her own new releases, many of which followed similar strategies – and resulted in truly impressive record-breaking numbers. Fearless (Taylor Edition)also a delayed physical release, it came with two vinyl versions, a gold variant and a Target-exclusive red, driving 67,000 copies in its first week. Red (Taylor Edition) she followed shortly after with two releases, both of which were four-LP sets that sold for $49.99 and resulted in 114,000 first-week sales, resetting her own record.
Until Midnight released about a year later, Swift's playbook was complete: multiple covers, multiple colored vinyl variations, and multiple vinyl versions of each album. Midnight it had four widely sold variants, as well as another as a Target exclusive, with each of the versions also available as signed copies. The result: 575,000 LPs sold in one week. Speak Now (Taylor Edition), the following July, had three colorways, one of which was a Target exclusive. 268,000 vinyl sales later, he entered the pantheon as well. And 1989 (Taylor Edition) completed the pre-Tormented poets set: five colorways, one exclusive to Target with an extra bonus track, and 693,000 LPs sold in the first week.
Since the pandemic year of 2020, US vinyl sales have jumped from $820 million to a 2023 peak of $1.35 billion in revenue. And while this is an industry-wide trend, Swift's strategies and successes certainly have something to do with it as well.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/pro/taylor-swift-vinyl-sales-from-nothing-historic/
