Taylor Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” with a first-week sales figure of 270,000 units in the UK alone, has broken a new record.
Notably, “The Tortured Poets Department” has become the first album in history to reach one billion streams on Spotify in just one week, reinforcing Taylor Swift as one of the most streamed artists of all time.
the album shattered records for single-week vinyl sales in the US, surpassing 1.8 million copies sold, with an astonishing 700,000 sales attributed to vinyl alone.
The album’s lead single, “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone, also became Spotify’s most-streamed song in a single day, racking up an impressive 25.2 million streams on its release day. Also in the UK, “Fortnight” claimed the number one spot, with two other tracks from the album landing in the top five.
Critics expressed mixed reviews of the album with some reviewers, such as Olivia Horn from Pitchfork and Larisha Paul from Rolling Stone, feeling that Swift was retreading familiar ground, as the album lacked innovation. They suggested that Swift was “going through the motions while running in place.”
However, other critics, including Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone and Helen Brown from The Independent, praised the album for its ambitious and cathartic nature.
Despite the critics, Taylor Swift’s fans have supported the album since its released.
