After a “stormy” week, Taylor Swift’s album The Tortured Poets Department officially debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 2.61 million units sold (including more than 1.9 million pure copies). Taylor Swift’s latest album immediately became the album with the highest first-week sales of 2024 and only took 1 week to become the highest-selling album in the US this year.

The album The Tortured Poets Department also brought in a total of more than 1 billion global streams after 1 week of release, in the US alone this number was 891 million streams. This helps Taylor Swift hold the record for the album with the highest first-week streams ever. Besides, Taylor Swift is also the only artist in history to have 7 albums selling more than 1 million copies in the first week ( The Tortured Poets Department, Midnights, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), 1989, Reputation, Red , Speak Now).

Taylor Swift was also extremely excited when sharing about her achievement: “My mind is going to explode. I’m completely overwhelmed by the love everyone has for this album! 2.6 million, everyone.” Are you serious? Thank you for listening, streaming, and welcoming “damned poets” into your lives. I’m so overwhelmed. It’s ‘on fire’ again on tour, and then there’s this! I wish May 9 could come sooner?”.

It’s not difficult to see that, besides “flexing” about her achievements, Taylor Swift also seems to implicitly confirm that she will bring songs from the album The Tortured Poets Department into the set list of The Eras Tour. Taylor Swift’s “super tour” will return on May 9 with 4 shows in Paris (France). After that, she will tour throughout Europe until the end of August.

However, even though the number of 2.61 million copies sold in the first week is an incredibly “huge” number, The Tortured Poets Department still cannot surpass the album’s unbeaten “super record”. 25 from Adele was released in 2015. Adele’s album 25 sold more than 3.48 million copies in its first week of release, still holding the record for the album with the highest first-week sales in history. Taylor Swift’s numbers are so “huge”, the more you see how “huge” Adele’s achievements are!

Taylor Swift and Adele are still two “monsters” of the music industry.