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The 31-track LP sold 1.4 million copies in its first day.
Taylor Swift was gunning for a truly epic release week long before The Tortured Poets Department actually dropped, with the pop star surprising fans by unleashing 31 new songs — as opposed to the previously confirmed 16 main and four bonus tracks — in the span of two hours April 19.
She’d been crafting the sprawling, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner-produced project for about two years before it finally arrived, with the singer telling fans at a February Eras Tour show that she’d been working on it since the moment she submitted the Billboard 200-topping Midnights to her label some time in 2022. The unavoidable news cycle about her breakups from longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn and The 1975’s Matty Healy, as well as her blossoming romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, only added fuel to the fire of hype leading up to Tortured Poets, which Swift further stoked by saying at another Eras concert, “I’ve never had an album where I needed songwriting more.”
Come April 19, and her inimitable lyricism, discourse-provoking songwriting and apparent allusions to the aforementioned relationships proved to be more than enough to make millions of listeners tune in, the 14-time Grammy winner smashing records left and right in the process. Before Tortured Poets even hit the Billboard charts, it was doing unprecedented numbers in streaming, sales and vinyl — not to mention selling 1.4 million copies in its first day on the market, according to Luminate — giving Swift’s peers a run for their money in more ways than one.
Keep reading to see all of the major records The Tortured Poets Department has broken — so far — below.
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Spotify’s Most Pre-Saved Countdown
Before Tortured Poets was even released, its countdown page on Spotify broke the streaming service’s record for most pre-saves in history. The countdown launched on March 28, two weeks ahead of the album’s release date, inviting Swifties to watch as each second ticked down.
Spotify also continuously updated the tab with links to the pop star’s merch as well as cryptic videos of Swift printing lyrics from the LP with a typewriter.
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Single-Week Vinyl Sales
Of Tortured Poets 1.5 million first-week sales, 700,000 of those copies were vinyl. That breaks Swift’s own record for the largest sales week for an album on vinyl in the modern era, or since Luminate began tracking data in 1991, beating the 693,000 sold of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in its first week in 2023.
Prior to its release, Tay announced four vinyl variants of Tortured Poets — “The Manuscript,” “The Albatross,” “The Bolter” and “The Black Dog” — each containing the 16 songs on the album’s main tracklist plus one bonus song.
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Single-Day Spotify Album Streams
Not only did Tortured Poets become Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day in history in less than 12 hours after its release, it also became the first album on the platform to amass more than 300 million streams in a single day ever.
The streaming service’s previous single-day record-holder was Beyoncé, whose Cowboy Carter garnered 300.41 million on-demand official streams in its first full week of release.
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Single-Day Spotify Song Streams
Similarly, the opening track on The Tortured Poets Department — “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone — broke Spotify’s record for the most streams ever garnered by one song in a day.
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Apple Music Pop Albums
Apple Music also shared that The Tortured Poets Department had broken its record for biggest pop album of all time by first-day streams shortly after the LP’s release.
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Fastest Album to 1 Billion Streams on Spotify
Just five days after TTPD was released, it became the first album in Spotify history to surpass one billion streams in a single week. It now stands as the fastest album in history to hit the milestone.
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Biggest Streaming Week of All Time
In its first six days on the market, Tortured Poets became the most streamed album in a single week with 799 million streams across all platforms, surpassing Drake’s previous record of 745.92 million with his 2018 LP Scorpion, according to Luminate.
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Historic Billboard 200 Debut
Ready for it? The Tortured Poets Department made a massive debut in its first week, not only starting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated May 4, but also nabbed the record for largest streaming week ever for an album since the chart started measuring by units in December 2014. Its first-week total came to 2.61 million, with album sales accounting for 1.914 million of that number.
With TTPD reaching the summit to become her 14th chart-topper, she now ties Jay-Z for most No. 1s among solo artists.
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Historic Hot 100 Debut
With Midnights, Swift became the first artist in history to simultaneously occupy all 10 of the top 10 spots of the Billboard Hot 100. With Tortured Poets, she breaks her own record by becoming the first to claim every slot in the top 14 at once, with “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone leading the charge at No. 1. The track marks Swift’s 12th and Posty’s fifth chart-topper.
See the top 14 spots on the May 4-dated Hot 100 below:
- No. 1, “Fortnight,” feat. Post Malone
- No. 2, “Down Bad”
- No. 3, “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
- No. 4, “The Tortured Poets Department”
- No. 5, “So Long, London”
- No. 6, “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”
- No. 7, “But Daddy I Love Him”
- No. 8, “Florida!!!,” feat. Florence + The Machine
- No. 9, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
- No. 10, “Guilty as Sin?”
- No. 11, “Fresh Out the Slammer”
- No. 12, “loml”
- No. 13, “The Alchemy”
- No. 14, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
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Most New Albums to Generate Hot 100 No. 1s
With “Fortnight” ascending to the top of the Hot 100, Swift breaks Rihanna’s record for most albums — ones with all-new material, that is — to spawn at least one No. 1 hit on the chart (eight).
Plus, “Fortnight” marks Swift’s seventh song to debut at No. 1 on the Hot 100, tying her with Ariana Grande for the most among women. Overall, only Drake has more with nine. The song also ties Swift for the most Hot 100 No. 1s this decade with Drake, both of whom have logged seven.
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2 New Streaming Songs Chart Records
Swift broke two records on the tally with Tortured Poets. First, she snagged the top 15 spots on the chart dated May 4, surpassing Drake’s previous record of 14, which was set in September 2021 with Certified Lover Boy. Second, she landed a total of 31 songs on the list — every track from the new album — which is the most any act has accomplished since the chart debuted in 2013.