- By Mark Savage
- Music correspondent, BBC Information
Picture supply, What Garrabrant
Taylor Swift is re-recording all of her first six albums
In a 12 months of record-breaking achievements, Taylor Swift has performed it once more.
A re-recording of her crossover pop album 1989 has change into the UK’s fastest-selling file of 2023.
1989 (Taylor’s Model) shifted 184,000 copies final week, greater than double the opening-week gross sales of the 2014 authentic.
It’s the solely album launched this 12 months to go gold in a single week, and is Swift’s eleventh UK primary general.
Amongst feminine artists, solely Madonna has extra chart toppers – and Swift is now inside touching distance of her file of 12.
1989 (Taylor’s Model) was additionally the week’s biggest-selling file on vinyl, with nearly 62,000 copies offered.
And three of the album’s songs have debuted within the prime 10 within the singles chart.
All three are additional, previously-unreleased “from the vault” tracks, with Is It Over Now? claiming the primary place, adopted by Now That We Do not Discuss at quantity two, and the provocatively-titled Slut! at 5.
US milestones
Swift has seen comparable success within the US, the place 1989 (Taylor’s Model) has offered 1.1 million copies since its launch final Friday.
Of that sum, 580,000 had been on vinyl – the biggest week for a single album in that format since fashionable gross sales monitoring started in 1991.
Moreover, 1989 (Taylor’s Model) immediately grew to become the 12 months’s biggest-selling album within the US, surpassing Swift’s personal 2022 launch Midnights.
The star now has the highest three-selling albums of the 12 months in her dwelling nation, together with her re-recorded model of 2010’s Converse Now in third place.
The achievement justifies Swift’s resolution to re-record all of her first six albums.
She began the undertaking in 2021 after her previous file label, Large Machine, offered her grasp tapes to music mogul Scooter Braun. He later offered them to an funding firm.
Billionaire standing
Moderately than lose management of her recordings, the star determined to recreate them – and in addition refuses to licence the originals to be used in TV and movie reveals, denying the brand new homeowners a profitable income stream.
Swift has additionally scored the largest tour of 2023, together with her Eras stadium reveals bringing in $300m (£242m) on the field workplace.
Final week, the star was declared a billionaire by enterprise publication Bloomberg, which estimated her web value to be $1.1bn (£907m).
Solely three different musicians have achieved billionaire standing – Rihanna, Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Nevertheless, Swift is the primary to achieve the milestone based mostly on music alone, as her rivals’ fortunes incorporate enterprise ventures in style, magnificence merchandise and hi-fi tools.
Swift’s UK chart dominance might be briefly interrupted subsequent week by the return of 4 musicians from Liverpool.
The Beatles’ “final ever” track, Now And Then, immediately grew to become the UK’s most-played track after its launch on Thursday.
On Spotify, the ballad racked up 386,752 streams on Spotify – overtaking Swift’s Is It Over Now?, which was performed 383,000 occasions.
If the Fab 4 can preserve that momentum over the subsequent week, they might rating their first UK primary single since The Ballad Of John And Yoko in 1969.
