Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, has achieved the biggest first-week sales in the UK since Ed Sheeran’s ÷ (Divide) in 2017, selling 432,000 combined units. This marks Swift’s 14th number one album in the UK, placing her behind only the Beatles and Robbie Williams, who each have 15 number ones.
The album also set records for first-week vinyl sales since modern chart records began in 1994, and achieved the highest number of UK album streams in a single week. Swift dominates the singles chart as well, holding the top three positions with The Fate of Ophelia at number one, Opalite at two, and Elizabeth Taylor at three.
Robbie Williams admitted he delayed his own album, Britpop, to avoid clashing with Swift’s release, saying, “I could pretend it’s not, but it is. It’s selfish. I want a 16th No 1 album.” Swift has now surpassed Elvis Presley’s 13 number-one albums and is tied with the Rolling Stones.
The album’s accompanying film, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, topped the global box office with $34m in the US and £3.5m in the UK, despite receiving mixed reviews. Swift told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, “I welcome the chaos… art is subjective.”
In the US, Swift broke Adele’s first-week sales record, selling 3.5m units in less than a week, with two days of the chart window remaining. Adele’s 25 had sold 3.482m copies in its initial week in 2015.
