Taylor Swift has made history by taking up every single spot in the top 10 of the Billboard charts this week with her new album Midnights.
In fairness to her, she’s one of the biggest musicians on the planet, and fans have been waiting for ages to get their ears around the new album, so perhaps it isn’t that surprising that she’s created such a monopoly.
Still, it’s a pretty wild achievement when you think about it properly.
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The standard edition only has 13 tracks on it, whereas the 3AM edition and deluxe have a few more, but – because this isn’t the 1990s – we aren’t really talking about CD sales here, are we?
Anyway, the 32-year-old – back with her 10th album – is the first artist to completely take over the charts after a new release, but given the trends in pop music these days, she might not be the last.
In case you’re wondering, her new single ‘Anti-Hero’ shot straight into the number one spot, giving Swift her ninth career US top spot.
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On Twitter after the news broke, Swift wrote: "10 out of 10 of the Hot 100??? On my 10th album??? I AM IN SHAMBLES.”
The closest that anyone has come to this sort of achievement before was Drake back in 2021.
When he released Certified Lover Boy, he managed to bag nine of the spots within the top 10, although he failed to remove Justin Bieber and Kid LAROI’s ‘Stay’ from the sixth place position.
As you can obviously guess, Swift’s album also now tops the Billboard 200 album chart, and some of the streaming figures are absolutely astronomical.
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‘Anti-Hero’ has been streamed nearly 110 million times already on Spotify, with ‘Lavender Haze’ behind that with 76 million streams.
The album has also claimed the accolade of the most-streamed album in a single day in the history of Spotify.
Not bad, given her chequered past with the platform.
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After that, Swift said: "How did I get this lucky, having you guys out here doing something this mind blowing?!
"Like what even just happened??!?!"
It’s also worth taking note of the fact that this lockout by Swift means that for the first time ever there are no male artists in the top 10.
The album itself does feature some well-known help for Swift, though.
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Collaborators such as Lana Del Rey and Jack Antonoff – of rock band Bleachers – feature, as well as Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, although he works under the stage name William Bowery, and Aaron Dessner from The National.
Speaking about her relationship with Antonoff and how the pair devised the album, Swift said on Instagram: "[Antonoff is] my friend for life (presumptuous I know but I stand by it) and we've been making music together for nearly a decade HOWEVER… this is our first album we've done with just the two of us as main collaborators.
"We'd been toying with ideas and had written a few things we loved, but Midnights actually really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama.
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“Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past."
Topics: US News, Music, Entertainment, Taylor Swift
Tom Wood