Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) is doing some red-hot business in the charts. In its first five days of release, the album has already logged the second-largest week for any album in 2021 in the U.S., and the biggest sales week of the year for any album. She also broke the record for the largest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era.
The album, which was released on Nov. 12, has earned over 500,000 equivalent album units in the U.S., of which 325,000 are in album sales. And, of that sales figure, 105,000 are in vinyl LP sales – a new single-week record for a vinyl album since MRC Data began tracking sales in 1991.
Billboard is scheduled to announce the album’s official final first-week numbers on Sunday, Nov. 21, after MRC Data has completed processing the week’s data.
The debut of Drake’s Certified Lover Boy is the largest week of 2021 by units, 613,000. And the previous largest sales week of the year was held by Swift’s latest studio album of all-original material, Evermore, when it sold 192,000 copies in the week ending June 3, following its release on vinyl LP.
If Red (Taylor’s Version) debuts at No. 1 on the Nov. 27-dated Billboard 200 chart, Swift’s tally of No. 1s will rise to 10, making her the second female artist with 10 leaders, following Barbra Streisand, with 11. The Beatles hold the record for the most No. 1 albums on the chart, with 19.
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