Taylor Swift is taking a bow after outdoing everyone — including herself — on the Billboard charts with The Life of a Showgirl this week.
Following the news that the pop star had scored her 15th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 — setting a new record for the most No. 1s among soloists — Swift shared a photo of herself kissing her new plaque displaying the feat Monday (Oct. 13). She also wrote a message thanking fans for helping her reach the chart’s summit once again, and for doing it in unprecedented numbers; Showgirl moved more than 4 million units in its first week, blowing past Adele’s previous record for the biggest album opening week ever.
“I’ll never forget how excited I was in 2006 when my first album sold 40,000 copies in its first week,” Swift wrote. “I was 16 and couldn’t even fathom that that many people would care enough about my music to invest their time and energy into it. Since then I’ve tried to meet and thank as many people as I could who have given me the chance to chase this insane dream.
“Here we are all these years later and a hundred times that many people showed up for me this week,” she continued. “I have 4 million thank you’s I want to send to the fans, and 4 million reasons to feel even more proud of this album than I already was. Thank you for going out to celebrate this project in the movie theaters, investing in vinyl, streaming, watching the video, buying CDs, reading the poems I wrote inside the packaging, and immersing yourselves in The Life of a Showgirl.”
“I’ll cherish this feeling forever,” the 14-time Grammy winner added. “Just wow. Thank you for the lovely bouquet.”
Tracking Swift’s ascent to Showgirl‘s success is truly mind-boggling. Even before she broke Adele’s record, the Eras Tour headliner had bragging rights to the second-biggest opening week for an album with 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, which moved an initial 2.610 million units and debuted atop the Billboard 200. TTPD would end up spending 17 weeks total at No. 1, which remains the third-longest stay at the top any album has ever clinched.
In addition to her astonishing Billboard 200 debut with Showgirl, Swift has also monopolized all 10 spots in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 with songs from the new album. It marks the third time she’s done this, and she’s still the only artist to have ever done it at all.
Taylor Swift
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