Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Breaks Global Streaming Record in Its First Week

Eric Frankenberg
·4 min read
1
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Taylor Swift has already broken, re-broken and extended several records across the Billboard charts this week. In addition to her staggering sales and streaming totals in the U.S., as reflected on charts dated May 4, The Tortured Poets Department is a certified global phenomenon: Its 31 songs on the LP’s deluxe version combined for the biggest global streaming week since the Billboard Global 200, which reflects consumption in over 200 territories, including the U.S., launched in September 2020. According to Luminate, the album drew 1.76 billion streams worldwide in the week ending April 25, following the set’s April 19 release.

Swift is no stranger to the global streaming record, as her new collection breaks the previous high set by her own Midnights. In October 2022, the then-20-song deluxe edition album logged 1.16 billion streams. That means that Swift hasn’t just set a new benchmark, but rather entered a new realm entirely, improving upon her previous best by 52%.

More from Billboard

It would be easy to attribute The Tortured Poets Department’s gargantuan streaming total to its extended track listing, as Swift added 15 songs (dubbed collectively as The Anthology) just two hours after releasing the 16-song standard edition. And while those tracks certainly helped, with nearly half a billion streams among them, she still would have broken the record with the original 16 songs, which combined for 1.27 billion first-week global clicks.

Global Debut Streaming Weeks
Biggest Global Streaming Debuts

Overall, Swift averaged 56.8 million streams per song across all 31 tracks, falling just short of Midnights’ 57.8 million.

But while The Tortured Poets Department’s original track listing made up the lion’s share of the album’s streaming total, the extra Anthology titles sold more. Swifties already owned the standard-edition songs after breaking vinyl-sales records but could only listen to the 15 additional tracks via streaming platforms or digital purchase. They sold a total of 95,000 copies worldwide, April 19-25, compared to 82,000 for the standard tracks.

Just over half of Swift’s first-week streams came from the U.S., with 869.6 million coming from beyond. So while she is based in America and even began her career in the U.S.-dominated country genre, her starpower knows no geographical bounds, as The Tortured Poets Department also claims the biggest streaming week for an album outside the U.S. (since September 2020). In setting this international record, she surpasses Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, whose 23 songs collectively drew 704.7 million non-U.S. streams upon its arrival in the week ending May 12, 2022 (for charts dated May 21).

The six biggest non-U.S. debut streaming weeks are all belong to Swift and Bad Bunny. Besides The Tortured Poets Department, Swift logged 606 million for Midnights and 440.8 million for 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in their opening weeks. And in addition to Un Verano Sin Ti, Bad Bunny clocked 502.1 million for nadie sabe lo que va a pasar manana and 378 million for El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo in their first frames.

“Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone, leads the charge, debuting atop the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S., starting atop the former with 176.8 million streams – or 10% of the album’s total streams – and 27,000 downloads sold worldwide. On the Global 200, Swift scores her fifth No. 1, the most for a soloist in the survey’s history. On Global Excl. U.S., she lands her third leader, tying for the most among soloists.

Meanwhile, “Fortnight” appears of 34 of Billboard’s Hits of the World Charts, topping tallies in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

Swift scores the top nine spots – marking a first – on the Global 200 and six of the top 10 on Global Excl. U.S., while all 16 standard-edition titles on the album place in each list’s top 30. “Robin,” the lowest-ranked song from the full album, ranks at No. 57 on the former chart and No. 123 on the latter. Swift ties Morgan Wallen (March 18, 2023) for the most entries – 34 – in a single week on the Global 200, while her 34 titles on Global Excl. U.S. marks a new one-week record. Swift (July 22, 2023) and Bad Bunny (May 21, 2022) previously shared the mark with 28 each.

Best of Billboard