Taylor Swift Breaks Record For Most #1 Albums By A Woman
Taylor Swift’s re-recorded version of Speak Now debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart this week. As the publication notes, it’s the year’s biggest album so far with 716,000 equivalent album units — 507,000 of those are traditional album sales. It’s the biggest week for any album since Swift’s last one, Midnights, which bowed with 1.58 million units last October.
This is Swift’s 12th #1 album on the chart, which means that she now has the most #1 albums by a woman, surpassing Barbra Streisand, who previously held that record. Swift is now tied with Drake for the third-most #1s; only the Beatles (at 19) and Jay-Z (14) have more.
With Speak Now at the top of the Billboard 200, she currently has four albums in the top 10: Midnights at #5, Lover at #7, and Folklore at #10. The last time a living act had four albums in the Top 10 was in 1966, when Herb Alpert achieved the same feat. The only other time an artist had four titles in the Top 10 at the same time was the week following Prince’s death in 2016.