With “Midnights,” Taylor Swift earned her 11th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 on the eve of the 11th month of the year.
According to Billboard, the album had the biggest week for any album in almost seven years as it enters the list with 1.578 million album-equivalent units sold in the United States. With “25,” Adele moved 3.482 million copies on the chart date of December 12, 2015.
As the female artist with the most No. 1 albums in the history of the chart, Swift is now tied with Barbra Streisand. She joins the Beatles (19), Jay-Z (14), Drake, Bruce Springsteen, and Streisand as the sixth performer with more than 10 No. 1 albums on the chart (all with 11). She also becomes the only artist in U.S. Nielsen history to have five albums that sell over 1 million copies in their first week.
Swift broke her record for the biggest sales week for an album since the release of her own “Reputation” in 2017. Her 13-track album, which was formally published on October 21, is already the best-selling album of the year in terms of overall sales.
“Midnights” was followed three hours later by a deluxe edition known as the “3 am Edition,” which had seven more tracks. There were five different LP editions, four of which had unique cover art and LP color variations. A fifth edition, called the Target edition, had a duplicate of one of those covers but in a different color. Sales of the CD edition, which was also offered with four other covers and internal artwork, totaled 395,000, helping her set a record for sales in one week.
Even more impressive: Swift sold 575,000 vinyl LPs of “Midnights,” shattering the country’s record for vinyl sales in a single week. (In contrast, Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House” sold 182,000 copies in its first week, making it the #1 vinyl seller.)
According to total on-demand official streams, Swift’s album has the third-highest streaming week of any album (549.26 million). It also has the largest streaming week of any non-R&B/hip-hop album and any album by a woman. She is currently in third place for an album’s largest streaming week, behind Drake’s “Scorpion” and “Certified Lover Boy.”
After taking the top spot a week earlier, Lil Baby’s “It’s Only Me” is now at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 110,000 equivalent album units sold (down 49%). For the first time since its debut in early May, Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” drops out of the top two positions and lands at No. 3 with 67,000 units (down 7%).
The Weeknd’s “The Highlights” maintains its position at No. 5 with 39,000 copies (down less than 1%), while Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” drops to No. 4 with 43,000 units (down 4%).
The Arctic Monkeys’ “The Car,” which debuted at No. 6 in its first week with 37,500 units, became the group’s fourth top-10-charting album (of that total, 28,500 units consist of album sales). Ma’ I Got a Family by YoungBoy Never Broke Again makes its chart debut this week at No. 7 with 37,000 equivalent album units sold. The 19-song collection is the rapper from Louisana’s 12th top-charting release and fifth top 10 in 2022.
With 31,000 units sold, “Snofall” by Jeezy and DJ Drama debut at No. 9 on the albums list. The 38.45 million official on-demand streaming of the set make up the majority of the total.
