By Chris Willman
Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic
Taylor Swift‘s “The Tortured Poets Department” registered 439,000 album-equivalent units to return as the No. 1 album in the U.S. in its second week out, according to data from Luminate first reported in Billboard. That’s an 89% drop from its massive debut week, when it racked up 2.61 million units. But the 439K is still much higher than any other album has accumulated in any week in 2024 so far, making it the year’s second-best tally to date.
Moreover, the second week figure for “Tortured Poets” is also the best second-week number for any album in nine years. The last time an album did any better in its sophomore session was in 2015, when Adele’s “25” did 1.162 million in its second week.
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Swift now has ownership of the top two weekly album figures in 2024. The 439,000 for “Poets” in week 2 is just ahead of the 407,000 that Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” racked up in its first week last month.
Of that 439,000 in album-equivalent units, 107,000 units were full-album sales, while streaming accounted for 330,000 of that figure, based on a formula that translates streams into chart units. The album picked up 428.54 million on-demand streams in week 2, according to Billboard.
“Tortured Poets” didn’t have any competition for its spot, earning about six times as many units as the nearest runner-up. Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” came in second place with 69,000 units, followed by Future and Metro Boomin (61,000), Beyoncé (52,000) and Noah Kahan (41,000).
Partynextdoor had the only new entry in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, entering at No. 10 with 34,000 units for “Partynextdoor 4 (P4).”
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