Taylor Swift fans came through for her in a big way last week.
Midnights, the singer’s 10th collection of new music, had the biggest debut of any album in nearly seven years – putting Swift in a tie with Barbra Streisand for the most No. 1 albums by a female artist.
Released on Oct. 21, Midnights is Swift’s 11th album to top the Billboard 200 chart, which will be published on Tuesday. This makes her the sixth act since the chart began in 1956 to have more than 10 albums go to No. 1 after the Beatles, Jay-Z, Drake, Bruce Springsteen and Streisand.
Midnights is the top-selling album of 2022 with 1.14 million (980,000 physical copies and 161,000 digital downloads), besting Harry’s House by Harry Styles, and second only to Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti when streaming figures are included.
It also had the biggest first week of any album since Swift’s reputation in 2017.
Swift is now the only act to have three different albums sell more than 1 million copies in the first week.
It’s a similar success story in the UK, where Swift tops the Official Albums Chart with sales of 204,000. Midnights takes over from Harry’s House as the fastest selling album of the year and the biggest first week of sales since Adele’s 30 last November.
With her ninth No. 1 album in the UK, Swift is second only to Madonna, who has 12. Swift also became the first female artist since Miley Cyrus in 2013 to have an album and a single debut at No. 1 in the UK at the same time.
Billboard noted that sales figures for Midnights got a boost from the nearly 20 versions available in various formats.
Swift announced the title of her new album while accepting the MTV VMA for Video of the Year on Aug. 28. Hours later, she described the collection as 13 songs about “13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.”
“This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams,” she explained on social media. “The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves."
Midnights follows 2020’s evermore and last year’s re-recorded versions of 2008’s Fearless and 2012’s Red.