It happened: Taylor Swift has surpassed Elvis Presley’s record as the solo artist with the most weeks at number 1 on the US album chart. The singer-turned-popstar has set a new milestone with a total of 68 weeks, as 1989 (Taylor’s Version) claimed the top spot for the fifth time in the last full tracking week of 2023.
While Swift has set a new record for a single artist, the ultimate scepter is still held by The Beatles, whose albums remained at the top of the Billboard 200 for 132 weeks. Presley’s 67 weeks now place him in second among solo artists and third among all acts.
In the week ending on December 28 – according to Variety – 1989 (Taylor’s Version) recorded 98,000 album-equivalent units. This unit of measurement is used by the music industry to calculate album sales, considering digital downloads and streams of individual tracks, in addition to traditional sales of entire albums in physical format. Of these 98,000 units for the week, 61,000 were related to complete album sales, driven by a last-minute surge in Christmas gift purchases.
Swift’s first number 1 album was Fearless, which stayed at the top for 11 weeks between late 2008 and early 2009, as reported by Billboard. This was followed by Speak Now (six weeks at number 1, 2010-11), Red (seven weeks, 2012-13), 1989 (11 weeks, 2014-15), Reputation (four weeks, 2017-18), Lover (one week, 2019), Folklore (eight weeks, 2020-21), Evermore (four weeks, 2020-21), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (two weeks, 2021), Red (Taylor’s Version) (one week, 2021), Midnights (six weeks, 2022-23), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (two weeks, 2023), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (five weeks, 2023-24).
