Taylor mania has hit the country once again as Red is flying off store shelves left
and right and already breaking records. By Wednesday, Swift is expected to sell
over one million copies in one week, a feat that is rarely achieved these days
and a feat in which only 17 others have ever done in music history.
Current predictions are for Red to sell at least 1.1 million copies by Wednesday, which comes
as no surprise since first day sales were over 500,000 copies. This will easily
put Swift at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart, where she will make
history as the first female artist to ever have two albums sell over one
million copies in one week. She joins the ranks of boy bands N*SYNC and the
Backstreet Boys, as well as rapper Eminem, as the only acts to have more than
one album sell over one million copies in one week.
Swift isn’t just breaking records on the albums
chart. Red is expected to break the
one-week sales record in the iTunes store, as well as at Target stores. The
lead single from the album, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, likely
helped boost sales for the album as it spent 3 weeks at the number one spot on
Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in September.
Back in the fall of 2010, Taylor’s album Speak Now sold 1.047 copies in its first
week and went on to sell well over 4 million copies, as well as winning several
Grammy awards. Red already seems well
on its way to a similar, and perhaps even more successful path. Final first
week numbers will be released Wednesday at www.billboard.com.
