CELEBRITY
Taylor Swift Breaks Impressive New Record
We’re not even a month into 2024 and Taylor Swift has already broken an incredible streaming record.
Like no other artist before her, Swift has dominated a large portion of the cultural zeitgeist and media attention over the past year. The 34-year-old pop superstar took the music industry by storm in 2023 and was crowned the most listened to artist in the world with more than 26.1 billion global streams. Now she has become the first artist in history to have five albums with over 7 billion streams each on Spotify.
According to the X account (formerly Twitter) @spotify_data, the five albums are Lover, Midnights, 1989, reputation and folklore.
Newsweek reached out to Swift’s publicist via email and contacted Spotify through its website for comment on Monday.
The news was also shared to X by the account @PopCrave, where people took to the replies to share their love for the singer-songwriter.
“I’m proud to live in Taylor Swift era,” one person wrote.
“So what you’re saying is it’s her, hi, she’s the Queen of streams,” said another, referencing her song “Anti-Hero.”
“and that’s what happens when you’re the music industry,” a third person commented.
A fourth added: “queen of spotify.”
Taylor Swift becomes the first artist in history to have five albums with over 7 billion streams each on Spotify. pic.twitter.com/e5vUEJ9Q57
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) January 21, 2024
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However, not everyone was complimentary, as others took the opportunity to share their dislike for her music.
“I speak for everyone when I say nobody is listening to this mid artist in 2024,” one X user commented.
“Raise you [sic] hand if you’ve never streamed Taylor swift on Spotify,” a different person wrote.
These negative comments won’t affect Swift and her career, however, as she is no stranger to breaking records. Only 12 days into 2024, she became the first act to hit 1 billion streams on Spotify, as reported by The Sun.
So what you’re saying is it’s her, hi, she’s the Queen of streams.
— Ian (makes films) (@ianmakesfilms) January 21, 2024
The record-breaking statistics keep coming, as her Eras Tour previously broke the Guinness World Record for the highest-grossing tour of all time. The 34-year-old singer-songwriter’s tour began in March 2023 and is set to conclude in December 2024 after a total of 151 shows worldwide.
It has seen unprecedented demand and according to stats shared by Pollstar on December 16, 2023, it had already earned $1.04 billion. The tour is also projected to generate close to $5 billion in consumer spending in the United States alone, bringing fans together from across the globe.
Swift’s sixth concert tour has been so successful that it has made more money than the combined earnings of the next two highest-grossing tours of 2023, which were the tours of Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen.
During Pollstar’s chart year—November 17, 2022, to November 15, 2023—Swift played 60 shows. In that time, she sold an impressive 4.3 million tickets at an average price of $238.95, putting her average show gross at more than $17 million for this leg of the tour. Overall, it has the potential to earn nearly $2 billion if all of the remaining scheduled concert dates go ahead.
Swift has released 10 original studio albums over the years, four re-recorded studio albums, five extended plays and four live albums. Thanks to 13 of those, she holds the record for the most albums to debut consecutively at No. 1. This accomplishment was made possible by her decision to rerecord and re-release her first six albums after her former talent manager, Scooter Braun, purchased her former record label, Big Machine Records, and the rights to all of the master recordings for her songs.
Her album 1989 (Taylor’s Version) sold 580,000 copies on vinyl between October 27 and November 1. It was the fastest-selling vinyl record ever, since the stat was first tracked in 1991, according to Billboard.
The singer’s success doesn’t end there, as in just its first weekend of release, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour became the highest-grossing domestic concert film of all time. It made $92 million in its opening weekend and according to Box Office Mojo, the movie has made more than $260 million globally since its October 13 release.