Taylor Swift Breaks Global Streaming Record with new album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ in Its First Week

Taylor Swift dominates the Hot 100 this week as songs from her new album The Tortured Poets Department.

This week, Taylor Swift has already extended, broken, and re-broken a number of records on the Billboard charts. Apart from her remarkable sales and streaming figures in the United States, which can be seen in charts from May 4, The Tortured Poets Department is an acknowledged worldwide phenomenon: The deluxe version of the album, which includes 31 tracks, had its largest worldwide streaming week since September 2020. The Billboard Global 200 measures consumption across more than 200 territories, including the United States. After the set’s April 19 release, Luminate reports that the album received 1.76 billion streams globally in the week that ended April 25.

Taylor Swift supersedes her previous mark

Swift has already broken the record for the most streams globally with her new collection, which surpasses the previous mark established by her own Midnights. The album’s 20-song deluxe edition saw 1.16 billion streams in October of 2022. That indicates that by surpassing her prior record by 52%, Swift has not only established a new standard but also ventured into uncharted territory. Given that Swift added 15 songs (collectively referred to as The Anthology) to The Tortured Poets Department barely two hours after the 16-song standard edition dropped, it would be simple to blame the album’s enormous streaming total for its expanded track listing.

She would have still beaten the record with the initial 16 songs, which accounted for 1.27 billion global clicks in their first week, even if those tracks undoubtedly helped—nearly half a billion streams among them. Swift barely missed Midnights’ 57.8 million total streams per song with an average of 56.8 million across all 31 tracks.

However, the additional Anthology titles sold more copies of the album than the original track lineup, which comprised the majority of the album’s streaming total for The Tortured Poets Department. After smashing vinyl sales records, Swifties were already in possession of the standard edition songs; nevertheless, they were limited to listening to the remaining fifteen tracks through digital purchases or streaming services. Between April 19 and 25, they sold 95,000 copies globally, as opposed to 82,000 for the normal tracks.

Number of streams Taylor Swift attracted in the first week

Swift received 869.6 million streams in its first week of release, just over half of which came from outside the United States. Despite being based in America and having started her career in the country music genre that is dominated by the country, her fame is evident worldwide as The Tortured Poets Department also holds the record for the most streaming week for an album released outside of the United States (since September 2020).

She beats Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, whose 23 tracks together earned 704.7 million non-U.S. streams upon their debut in the week ending May 12, 2022 (for charts dated May 21), in setting this international record. With 176.8 million streams—or 10% of the album’s total streams—and 27,000 downloads sold globally, “Fortnight,” starring Post Malone, leads the charge and debuts atop the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. Swift has the highest ever soloist score of any soloist in the survey’s history with her fifth No. 1 on the Global 200. She scores her third leader on Global Excl. U.S., sharing the most among soloists.

Taylor Swift Billboard rankings

In the meanwhile, “Fortnight” is ranked number one on 34 of Billboard’s Hits of the World Charts, and it is the most popular song in the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Swift places six of the top 10 on Global Excl. U.S. and the top nine spots on the Global 200, which is a first. All 16 of the album’s standard-edition tracks rank in the top 30 on each chart. The album’s bottom-ranked track, “Robin,” is ranked No. 57 on the former chart and No. 123 on the latter. Swift’s 34 entries in a single week on the Global 200 matched Morgan Wallen’s record from March 18, 2023, while her 34 titles on the Global Excl. U.S. set a new record for one week. Previously, Bad Bunny (May 21, 2022) and Swift (July 22, 2023) shared the mark with 28 each.