Swift’s latest album outearns the next top 10 LPs combined with a growth-hacky strategy
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Six fortnights and counting… Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” has been No. 1 on Billboard’s chart for a record-breaking 13 weeks straight since its release three months ago, with sales and streams continuing to dominate. She sold nearly 2.5M copies of “TTPD” — more than this year’s next nine best-selling albums combined, Luminate data showed. It’s also the most-streamed album of the year, with a 500M lead over Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time.”
Love story: Swift contributed 2% of the entire music industry’s sales last year, and she’s a top earner for her record label, Universal Music Group, which could see a “TPPD” boost when it reports next week.
Billions: Ticketmaster owner Live Nation saw sales grow 21% to a first-quarter record of $3.8B, boosted by Swift’s $1B Eras Tour, which inspired the highest-grossing concert film of all time, released with AMC.
One album, 30+ versions… When “TPPD” dropped, there were four versions fans could buy, each with a different bonus track. Swift has continued releasing variants, some with acoustic versions of songs, others with voice memos from Swift (a “phantom clear vinyl” version’s hot rn). She’s not the only artist growth-hacking music sales: this year’s top 10 best-selling physical albums have an average of seven vinyl variants. And Sabrina Carpenter released seven versions of her song “Please Please Please,” juicing its downloads and use across platforms (think: an extra-fast version for TikTok).
Emotional investment pays dividends… Critics say Swift, who was ID’d as a billionaire last year, exploits her fans by encouraging them to buy album variants. But today’s music stans spend thousands to travel to different countries to see their fave artists perform live (in addition to the cost of concert tix). Fans will go to great lengths to engage with and support their musical idols, and may like having more opps to do so.