Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl opens with 3.475 million sold — and more than four million total units — outselling every other album in the U.S. many times over. VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – DECEMBER 06: EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO STANDALONE PUBLICATION USE (NO SPECIAL INTEREST OR SINGLE ARTIST PUBLICATION USE; NO BOOK USE). Taylor Swift performs onstage during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at BC Place on December 06, 2024 in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Photo by Kevin Winter/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
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Taylor Swift’s new album The Life of a Showgirl isn’t just another No. 1 for the singer-songwriter. As the project appears on the Billboard charts for the first time this week, it resets multiple records. The 12-song studio effort opens with the largest debut frame ever, as well as the most impressive one-week sales sum in history.
It’s no surprise that Swift scores the top-selling album in America — that’s a feat she’s managed many times before, and in some cases, she’s done so for weeks or even months with the same title. What’s astounding is just how huge The Life of a Showgirl becomes upon its arrival, as no other release compares. Swift’s latest outpaces not just its closest competitors, but every other bestseller in the nation combined — several times over.
How Many Copies Did The Life of a Showgirl Sell First Week?
The Life of a Showgirl launches with 3.475 million copies sold. That total is spread across digital downloads and a wide variety of physical formats, from CD to vinyl and even cassette. Swift helped inflate the first-week sum by releasing more than two dozen variants of the album, though the music amongst them stayed largely the same.
Taylor Swift Breaks Adele’s All-Time Record
MUNICH, GERMANY – AUGUST 02: (Exclusive Coverage) Adele performs onstage at Messe München on August 02, 2024 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for AD)
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The Life of a Showgirl now claims the largest sales week for any title since Luminate began collecting music consumption data electronically in 1991, which marked the start of the modern era of music tracking. The Life of a Showgirl surpasses the previous record holder, Adele’s 25, which started with 3.378 million sales almost exactly a decade ago.
The Life of a Showgirl Outsells the No. 2 Album Many Times Over
The No. 2 bestselling album in America this week, according to Luminate, is Karma by South Korean boy band Stray Kids. That former chart-topper sold 12,100 copies during the same period. Swift outpaces that figure an incredible 287 times over.
Taylor Swift Outsells the Top 10 Bestselling Albums – 44 Times Over
A quick look at the Top Album Sales chart — Billboard’s ranking of the bestselling albums of any kind or language in the country — shows just a handful of debuts while several recent favorites hold on inside the uppermost region. Silver Bleeds the Black Sun by AFI and Songbird from country legend Waylon Jennings open at Nos. 5 and 6, respectively, the only other entrants inside the highest tier aside from Swift. The rest of the top tier includes recent drops like Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend, Katseye’s The Beautiful Chaos EP, Cardi B’s comeback set Am I the Drama?, and Mariah Carey’s Here for It All.
US rapper Cardi B arrives for the 2025 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5, 2025, in New York. The Gala raises money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. The 2025 Met Gala is themed “Tailored for You,” aligning with the Costume Institute’s exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” set to open to the public on May 10. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
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The titles that appear in spots two through 10 on the Top Album Sales list collectively sold almost 79,000 copies last frame in America. Swift beats that figure 44 times over, with only The Life of a Showgirl.
The Life of a Showgirl Outsells the Rest of the Chart 15 Times Over
Billboard’s Top Album Sales ranking features 50 positions, and even when all of the efforts that are not titled The Life of a Showgirl are combined, their total doesn’t come close to Swift’s. The other 49 projects that appear on the competitive, non-genre-specific roster collectively sold about 230,000 CDs, downloads, cassettes, and vinyl records in the latest tracking frame. The Life of a Showgirl alone tops that figure more than 15 times over.
What is the Largest Debut of All Time on the Billboard 200?
In addition to making history with the largest debut sales sum ever, The Life of a Showgirl also shatters the all-time best showing in terms of total equivalent album units, as streaming activity now factors into a full-length’s total. Swift’s latest behemoth debuts atop the Billboard 200 with just over four million equivalent units. Once again, Swift beats Adele’s record, as 25 opened with 3.482 million units, with nearly all of those coming from actual sales.
Taylor Swift’s Past Albums Return to the Top Album Sales Chart
LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 20: Taylor Swift performs on stage The BRIT Awards 2013 at The O2, on February 20, 2013 in London, England. (Photo by JM Enternational/Redferns)
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While the focus for Swift is, of course, on The Life of a Showgirl, she also sees multiple past projects return to the Top Album Sales chart as fans recently went on a shopping frenzy. She appears on the list with Midnights (No. 15), 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (No. 18), Folklore (No. 19), The Tortured Poets Department (No. 21), Evermore (No. 24), Lover (No. 25), Red (Taylor’s Version) (No. 46), and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (No. 50). All but The Life of a Showgirl return to the ranking this frame.
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