SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE – MARCH 02: EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO BOOK COVERS Taylor Swift performs during … [+]
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was an undeniable and historic success on streaming platforms in its first week. The set’s numbers were so massive that it shatters a previously-set record for the most plays on sites like Spotify and Apple Music in one tracking frame all around the world.
Billboard reports that the songs on The Tortured Poets Department earned a total of 1.76 billion streams in the first week the album was available. That sum is global, and it includes a number of major streaming platforms.
The Tortured Poets Department now claims the record as the most-streamed album globally in a single week—at least since Billboard began tracking global consumption in 2020. Swift’s latest offering doesn’t just top the previous best showing, it passes it by a massive margin.
Before The Tortured Poets Department arrived, the record for the most streams an album had racked up in a single week all around the world already belonged to Swift. She reset the bar in 2022 with her album Midnights, which stood as her most recent release of original material until last month.
When Midnights dropped a little less than two years ago, the project racked up 1.16 billion plays. That was just slightly higher than the record at the time, which was owned by Drake’s Certified Lover Boy. In 2021, that title earned 1.1 billion streams in a week.
Swift shatters her own record by 600 million streams. That sum is larger than most albums would be able to collect in months, let alone a single week. The difference between Swift’s records is more impressive than most musicians could muster in a lifetime.
All those streams aided The Tortured Poets Department in debuting at No. 1 on charts all around the world. The set gave Swift another champion in pretty much every territory possible, as the masses couldn’t stop listening to the 31-tune set.
The Tortured Poets Department opens at No. 1 on a number of Billboard charts in America this week. The title is an easy leader on the Billboard 200, where it earns the second-largest tracked debut of all time. It also gives Swift only her second ruler on the Top Streaming Albums chart, which is still relatively new.
