Taylor Swift breaks Whitney Houston’s Billboard record

Swift continues to make history with Folklore

Taylor Swift has surpassed Whitney Houston’s Billboard record with Folklore. The album returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for the seventh consecutive week, which puts Swift’s total weeks at No. 1 at 47, one more than Houston’s tally of 46, a record she has held since 1987, according to Billboard.

Folklore is up 97 percent in sales this week after earning 87,000 equivalent album units in the US, most likely from newly released signed copies she offered to independent record stores and her website, as well as new merch bundles at her online store. Since single streams count towards equivalent sales, she also benefits from releasing the live version of “Betty” from the Academy of Country Music Awards which was uploaded to YouTube and released to digital outlets following the September 16th award show.

Folklore has achieved “the longest consecutive run at No. 1 since 2016” with seven straight weeks atop the Billboard 200. Upon release in August, it reached No. 1 on iTunes in 90 countries. These latest achievements follow a series of records set by Folklore. During release week, it shattered the global record for first-day album streams on Spotify by a female artist with 80.6 million streams and delivered the most-streamed pop album on Apple Music in 24 hours with 35.47 million streams. Additionally, Folklore set the U.S. and Worldwide Amazon Music Indie/Alternative Streaming Record. It raised the bar with the biggest first week album streams by a female artist in the UK in 2020 and biggest first week album streams of Swift’s career in the UK.

The lead single from the album, “Cardigan,” debuted No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and the Global Spotify chart, claiming the most daily Spotify streams in 2020. It also soared to No. 1 on iTunes song chart and was the most added song at Top 40 and Hot AC radio airplay charts nationwide. The song was also added straight to the A list on BBC Radio 1 in the UK.

Swift is the only artist to have seven albums each sell at least 500,000 copies in a single week (Fearless, Speak Now, RED, 1989, Reputation, Lover and Folklore). She is also the first and only female artist in the 21st century to score five No. 1 studio albums in the UK.

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com