Taylor Swift’s Re-Recorded ‘Speak Now’ Already Has 2023’s Biggest Week After 4 Days of Release
Written by djfrosty on July 11, 2023
Taylor Swift’s third re-recorded album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), has earned over 575,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first four days of release (July 7-10), according to initial reports to Luminate — marking the biggest week for any album in 2023. Of that sum, album sales comprise over 400,000 copies – the largest sales week for an album this year, too.
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is a re-recorded version of Swift’s 2010 No. 1 Billboard 200 studio album Speak Now. The 22-track re-recorded edition includes new recordings of the original album’s 14 standard tracks, along with bonus cuts and previously unreleased “From the Vault” recordings. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) follows Swift’s re-recorded Red and Fearless albums, released in 2021. Both debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
If Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) debuts at No. 1 on the July 22-dated Billboard 200 chart (which reflects the tracking week ending July 13), Swift’s count of No. 1 albums will rise to 12, surpassing Barbra Streisand (with 11 leaders) for the most No. 1 albums among female artists. Swift would also tie Drake for the third-most No. 1s among all acts, with only The Beatles (19) and Jay-Z (14) ahead of them. (The Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956.) The top 10 of the July 22-dated Billboard 200 chart is scheduled to be announced on Sunday, July 16.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
2023’s previous largest week, by equivalent album units earned, was tallied by Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which launched with 501,000 units in the week ending March 9, as reflected on the Billboard 200 chart dated March 18. The year’s largest sales week was held by the debut frame of Stray Kids’ 5-STAR with 235,000 copies sold in the week ending June 8, as reflected on the June 17-dated charts.
Sales: With over 400,000 sold in only four days, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) already has the largest sales week for any album since Swift’s own last studio album, Midnights, debuted with 1.14 million copies sold last year (week ending Oct. 27, 2022; as reflected on the Nov. 5-dated Billboard charts).
Vinyl sales comprise over half of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’s sales – as the three-LP set has sold over 225,000 copies on wax. The latter marks the second-largest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era (since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991). It is second only to the first week of Midnights’ vinyl LP, with 575,000 sold in its opening frame. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is available in three color variants on vinyl – orchid marbled, violet marbled and a Target-exclusive lilac marbled color.
The remainder of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) sales is comprised of CDs, digital album download purchases and cassette tape sales.
Streaming: The collected 22 songs on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) generated more than 200 million on-demand official streams in the U.S. July 7-10, according to Luminate. The most-streamed tune on the album, by audio on-demand official streams, is the “from the vault” cut “I Can See You (Taylor’s Version),” with over 13 million on-demand official audio streams in those four tracking days.