Taylor Swift’s ‘Red’ Achieves Record-Breaking Debut
Filed under: Donovan, Music
Author: Donovan
Date: Oct 31, 2012
Industry insiders predicted it and now it’s official. Taylor Swift’s new album Red sold over one million copies during its first week- 1.21 million copies to be exact. That’s the biggest weekly total in a decade. Looks like all that hard work promoting it paid off. Everywhere you turned last week, the 22-year-old singer was there. Last week alone, Swift was on ABC’s Good Morning America, The View, 20/20 and Katie, CBS’ The Late Show With David Letterman and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
With this latest accomplishment, Taylor becomes the first woman in chart history to have two albums sell over one million copies in their debut week. The only other artists to have ever achieved this feat are The Backstreet Boys (Millenium and Black and Blue), ‘N Sync (No Strings Attached and Celebrity) and Eminem (The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show).
Red is only the 18th album to move a million units in a single week since SoundScan started tracking in 1991. Swift is now second only to Britney Spears who had a bigger week, when Oops! . . . I Did It Again sold 1.319 million in its debut in 2000. Overall, Red is the eighth largest debut in modern chart history. Taylor’s accomplishment is even more impressive given today’s music industry climate and the fact she didn’t have to heavily discount her album like Lady Gaga did with Born This Way which sold some units for 99 cents.
If you’re tired of seeing Taylor everywhere, I’m sorry to say that’s not going to end anytime soon. The “We Belong” singer graces the covers of Cosmopolitan and Elle Canada for December 2012. She even pops up on Delta’s inflight magazine, Sky. Check out all the covers below and vote for your favorite.
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EvChemical
October 31st, 2012 at 6:52 am
What exactly is your problem with Amazon’s promotion? You’ve brought it up twice in 2 days. It;s as if the albums’ content is now inferior because ONE major online retailer offered a discount in order to help promote it’s music downloading service.
Nostrade
October 31st, 2012 at 10:59 am
It seems Gaga will continue to be dragged for something she didn’t even have a hand in. Also, all this lauding for the Red album without me actually enjoying the singles is only succeeding in making me believe Taylor is overrated.
HB
October 31st, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Lol at the pressed Gaga stans thinking she had nothing to do with amazon’s discount. It was an agreement from both parties to basically give the album away for free. Though, Taylor’s records is impressive, she also used similar marketing as Gaga by partnering with Papa John’s (getting a pizza and her cd for $22 aka $0.99 for the album type of deal)
justin
October 31st, 2012 at 4:17 pm
omg everytime they say gaga and a million everybody has to mention 99 cents promotion. she sold the digital album for 99 cents to consumers but the retailer had to pay the regular wholesale price for those albums sold. so everytime anybody bought the album amazon was losing money on it since they were undercharging the album by a huge amount to consumers. why can it be noted that gaga gave her fans and consumers an affordable album so they could enjoy the music more, clearly she just wanted to release her music. so if anybody who bought the album at 99 cents got a real value for it. im sick of the backhanded compliments and shade being thrown at her when if people actually looked at what she did they would think thats pretty nice. she basically screwed amazon and helped fans and consumers. if she benefited from it good for her but they really need to stop with the negativity about this.
Homegirl No5
October 31st, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Of course Gaga needed to sell her album for 99 cents and Taylor Swift needs to give her cd away free with pizza. They can not compete with the real Queen of Pop, Hilary Duff. Hilary Duff scored several #1 albums without ever needing to use cheap tricks.
Collinson
November 1st, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Exactly what is the best practice to do a search for information sites you are searching for?
Collinson
Belladonna
November 1st, 2012 at 9:50 pm
I love Taylor and i got Red off iTunes! im really happy for her and the album is one of my favs! I get why people bring up the 99cent deal because it’s harder to sell an album for 22$ then to sell it for 99cents but she didnt sell it for 99cents Amazon payed for the albums they got at a lost of 3million$ but most importantly to say LG could not have sold over 1million with out it is crazy!!! She sold more albums then taylor be4 she came out with Born this Way,in fact Taylor’s last album that sold 1million in its first week (Speak Now) still didn’t sell more then Born This Way, Gaga’s Singels,Albums and Tours do better then Taylor’s! She’s Lady Gaga people!lol She is the Lady Gaga with 30million followers on Twitter. Lol But some people just need something to discredit her for and that’s ok aka Madonna fans! Lol
Belladonna
November 1st, 2012 at 9:55 pm
And this goes with out saying but I’m going to say it anyway LOL ARTPOP is going to make everyone Eat ITTTTT!!!!!!! Lol
Jake Samson
November 4th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
omg this girl is sooooooo overrated.