Taylor Swift Midnights makes Music History
Taylor Swift – radioaustintexas.com
Radio Austin
Taylor Swift midnights makes Music History
Just eight weeks after the release of her 10th album Midnights, Taylor Swift makes global music history as the only artist to have five albums with more than one million units sold during release week. Midnights has sold six million units total, including three million in the U.S. alone, within eight weeks of its release.
Midnights became the fastest-selling album of Taylor Swift’s career, helping her break a number of records in streaming, physical and vinyl album sales worldwide.
The album sold a record 1.6 million units within its debut week and is also the first release to sell more than one million physical albums since 2015.
Like no other artist has ever done, Swift has sold 22.4 million albums and has had 36.6 billion combined streams of her music. Within its first week of release, Midnights, alone, had more than one billion streams.
She was also the first artist to fill the Top 10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart with tracks from Midnights.
T-Swift’s world-tour rush crashed Ticketmaster, highlighting the reach of Live Nation’s concert empire
Fans said they were forced to wait hours for site access — and many still couldn’t complete their transactions, despite having a presale code.
Ticketmaster said the problems were a result of “historically unprecedented demand,” and it extended the presale event for an extra day.
FYI: Swift’s “Midnights” became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single-day when it dropped last month.
Pop-star performances… at Super Bowl prices. The live-music industry has had a show-stopping comeback since the pandemic hit. Last quarter, Live Nation’s revenue climbed 63% from 2019, and it’s on pace to notch record ticket sales this year. But as more Americans splurge on experiences over objects, concert prices have surged nearly 15% from prepandemic. It’s good news for Ticketmaster, which is said to make up 70%+ of ticketing services for major venues like Madison Square Garden.
THE TAKEAWAY
It’s hard to be a hater of the top player… Music fans may be mad at Live Nation, but its live-music dominance makes it hard to escape. In January, Live Nation was accused of snubbing venues that didn’t use Ticketmaster. Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Ticketmaster was a “monopoly” after the Swift drama. But the backlash hasn’t curbed demand: Ticketmaster sales for 2023 shows are already on track to surpass this year’s.
Taylor Swift – radioaustintexas.com
Taylor Swift website(opens in new tab)
Described by Swift as “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout [her] life,” Midnights features collaborations with Lana Del Rey and Zoë Kravitz. The project includes her No. 1 single “Anti-Hero,” a song Swift considers one of her favorites that she has ever written.
“I don’t think I’ve delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before,” said Swift. “I struggle a lot with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized, and not to sound too dark. I struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person. This song really is a real guided tour throughout all of the things I tend to hate about myself.”
Swift is set to embark on her The Eras Tour in 2023, which will hit stadiums in key cities in support of Midnights. The trek will feature a collection of supporting artists, including Paramore, HAIM, GAYLE, Phoebe Bridgers, girl in red, MUNA, OWENN, beabadoobee, and Gracie Abrams.
Last updated `12/23/2022