Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, earns the biggest first week in music history with over 4 million U.S. and 5.5 million global album-equivalent units. Upon release, the album shattered countless records and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, marking another historic milestone in Swift’s career. Dominating across all platforms, The Life of a Showgirl amassed more than 1.5 billion global streams, securing the largest debut of 2025.
Taylor Swift commented, “I’ll never forget how excited I was in 2006 when my first album sold 40,000 copies in its first week. I was 16 and couldn’t even fathom that that many people would care enough about my music to invest their time and energy into it. Since then I’ve tried to meet and thank as many people as I could who have given me the chance to chase this insane dream. Here we are all these years later and a hundred times that many people showed up for me this week. I have 4 million thank you’s I want to send to the fans, and 4 million reasons to feel even more proud of this album than I already was. Thank you for going out to celebrate this project in the movie theaters, investing in vinyl, streaming, watching the video, buying CDs, reading the poems I wrote inside the packaging, and immersing yourselves in The Life of a Showgirl. I’ll cherish this feeling forever.”
See below for other key highlights and listen to The Life of a Showgirl – HERE.
Billboard 200 Achievements
● The Life of a Showgirl posts the largest sales week for any album in US music history.
● Marks Swift’s 15th No. 1 album, breaking the record for the most No. 1 albums in the 21st century.
● Sets the record for the most No. 1 albums by a solo artist.
● Extends her record as the female artist with the most No. 1 albums in Billboard 200 history.
● Continues her streak of 11 consecutive studio albums debuting at No. 1, beginning with Fearless (2008). Including four “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings, Swift has now achieved 15 consecutive No. 1 debuts.
● With this release, Swift reaches her 87th week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, extending her records for:
○ Most weeks at No. 1 in the 21st century
○ Most weeks at No. 1 by a solo artist in history
○ Most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist in history
Billboard Hot 100 Achievements
● “The Fate of Ophelia”
○ 13th #1 single on the Hot 100
○ Ties for fourth most #1 hits in chart history
○ Third most for a female artist
○ Ties for second most #1 hits in the 21st century
○ Ties as the only soloist to have 13 #1 singles and 13 #1 albums
● Album
○ First album in history with all its songs appearing uninterrupted from #1 through #12
● Joins Taylor’s ‘Midnights’ and ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ as the only albums in history to produce #1 through #10 on the Billboard Hot 100
Vinyl Records
● The Life of a Showgirl earned the largest vinyl sales week in Nielsen history, surpassing 1 million units sold – the first album ever to achieve this milestone.
Streaming Records
● Spotify:
○ “The Fate of Ophelia” set the record for the most daily and weekly streams of any song in Spotify history.
○ The album achieved the largest standard edition debut in Spotify history with 250 million streams.
○ Swift now holds the top 19 biggest song debuts and the top 4 biggest album debuts in Spotify history.
○ “The Fate of Ophelia” also became the fastest song to surpass 100 million streams.
○ Swift is now the only artist to simultaneously hold the platform’s top single-day and weekly records across song, album, and artist categories.
○ Taylor Swift holds the top 4 biggest album debuts in Spotify history
○ “The Fate of Ophelia” fastest song to surpass 100 million streams in Spotify history
○ Taylor Swift now holds top song, album and artist single day and weekly records on platform
○ Taylor Swift now holds top 3 fastest albums to 1 Billion on Spotify
○ “Opalite” fastest non-single to reach 100 million streams in Spotify history
● Apple:
○ The Life of a Showgirl posted the largest iTunes and Apple Music debuts of 2025.
○ “The Fate of Ophelia” posted the largest Apple Music debut of 2025.
● Amazon:
○ The album achieved the largest debut in Amazon Music history.
