Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets Department' dominates US sales and Billboard charts

FILE PHOTO: Taylor Swift attends a premiere for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 11, 2023. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop megastar Taylor Swift sold 2.61 million album and streaming units of “The Tortured Poets Department” during its first week of release in the U.S., Billboard reported on Sunday, calling it “a gigantic debut at No. 1” on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Traditional album sales totaled 1.91 million in the week ending April 25 between digital download albums, CDs, cassettes and also included 859,000 vinyl sales, Billboard said, citing data from Luminate. The album generated 891.34 million on-demand official streams.

The album scored the largest streaming week for an album ever and the largest sales week for an album on vinyl in the modern era, Billboard said. It is also the top-selling album so far in 2024.

It was Swift’s 14th chart-topping album, tying with Jay-Z for the most No. 1s among soloists.

Swift released the first 16 tracks of “Poets” on April 19. Two hours later, she surprised fans by revealing it was a double album with 15 more songs.

It was the 11th studio album from the 34-year-old record-setting singer, who won an unprecedented fourth album of the year award at February’s Grammys for “Midnights.”

Last week, Spotify said “Poets” was its most-streamed album in a single week, surpassing 1 billion streams.

Swift also topped the British music charts on Friday, outselling the rest of the top 10 combined and beating the Beatles for the record of fastest artist to rack up 12 UK number one albums.

“Poets,” distributed by Universal Music Group, received mostly positive reviews from critics and fans.

Swift will resume her Eras Tour, the highest-grossing concert tour in history, in Paris in May.

She is among several of music’s top female artists releasing albums this spring. Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” debuted in March, and Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish have releases scheduled for next month.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Mary Milliken; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)