Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ Scores Biggest Global Streaming Week of 2022
Written by djfrosty on November 2, 2022
The anti-hero of the Nov. 5-dated Billboard charts, Taylor Swift tallies 20 debuts on the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. Every song from the expanded, “3am Edition” version of her new album Midnights launches in the top 40 of the former and the top half of the latter, led by “Anti-Hero” at No. 1 on both rankings.
The 20 songs on the set – which soars in at No. 1 on the U.S.-based Billboard 200 albums chart with the biggest week (by equivalent album units) in seven years – collectively drew 1.16 billion official streams and sold 211,000 downloads worldwide in the week ending Oct. 27, according to Luminate. That’s the biggest global streaming figure for an album this year, passing Bad Bunny’s 1.06 billion clicks in the week ending May 12 upon the arrival of Un Verano Sin Ti.
The 13 titles on the standard edition of Midnights garnered 973 million global streams, accounting for 84% of the set’s overall streaming figure despite equaling 65% of the total track listing. Standard-version tracks averaged 75 million clicks, compared to 26 million for “3am Edition”-only tracks. (The original version of Midnights arrived at midnight ET Oct. 21, followed by the “3am Edition” at, when else, 3 a.m.)
While standard Midnights songs scored nearly three times the global streams as their deluxe counterparts, the opposite was true in the sales market. The seven extra songs sold a combined 138,000 downloads worldwide, while the 13 standard songs amassed 73,000 (as many consumers likely purchased the set’s original version as a whole and upgraded to buying the seven bonus cuts à la carte, activity also reflected on the U.S.-based Digital Song Sales chart).
Meanwhile, Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy,” the No. 1 song on both global charts the previous four weeks, falls to No. 6 on the Global 200, acting as the only interruption to Midnights’ near-total takeover atop the tally, as the 13 standard-edition tracks are Nos. 1-5 and 7-14. The seven additional songs rank at Nos. 21-22, 24, 30-31, 35 and 37, giving Swift half the chart’s top 40 songs.
Swift has accumulated 94 entries on the Global 200, leading all acts, over Lil Baby (69), Drake (61), Lil Durk (55) and Bad Bunny (52), since the survey started in September 2020. She also owns the record on Global Excl. U.S. with 75 entries, besting Bad Bunny and Drake at 52 apiece.