Taylor Swift has set another record with her 10th studio album, ‘Midnights‘, becoming the latest artist to achieve an Official Chart Double, as both her album and single ‘Anti-Hero’ claim Number One on the Official Albums and Singles Chart at the same time.
According to new Official Charts Company data released today, Swift moved 204,000 UK chart sales in just seven days, more than double her previous record of 90,300, which she managed when her album 1989′ back in 2014.
Released last Friday (October 21), the singer-songwriter’s 10th studio effort also smashed Spotify’s record for the most-streamed album in a single day – a feat Swift said was “mind-blowing”.
The Official Chart Company also reported that Arctic Monkeys’ streak of six UK Number One albums has been broken. Their release ‘The Car’ debuted at Number Two with over 100,000 chart sales in its opening week.
“Many congratulations to Taylor Swift on her fantastic achievement in topping 200,000 sales this week”, Martin Talbot, Chief Executive, Official Charts Company said in a statement. “We always knew this would be a huge week for fans of Taylor and Arctic Monkeys, following the release of their brand new albums – and their combined first week total of more the 320,000 chart sales indicates that their pre-release excitement was well placed.”
‘Midnights’ marks Swift’s ninth consecutive Number One album, with the singer-songwriter setting a new all-time Official Chart record by generating the fastest succession of nine UK Number One albums of any female artist, a title that used to belong to Madonna.
In a four-star review of ‘Midnights’, NME’s Hannah Mylrea wrote: “The country roots she revisited on her re-recorded albums is nowhere to be found, and folk influences of her lockdown projects are largely absent. Instead she spins these new stories through sleek synth-pop, in common with ‘1989’ or ‘Lover’, but the razor-sharp production of these albums is more subtle this time around.”
