Taylor Swift Sells 1.4 Million Copies of ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ on First Day of Release in U.S.

Beth Garrabrant
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department is off to a blockbuster start in the U.S. On its first day of release, on April 19, the set sold 1.4 million copies in traditional album sales, according to initial reports to data tracking firm Luminate. That marks Swift’s biggest sales week ever for any album in the U.S. (Luminate’s sales, streaming, and airplay data powers Billboard’s charts. All numbers in this story are for the U.S. only.)Plus, the set’s 31 songs (available on its deluxe streaming and digital editions) generated 243.4 million official on-demand audio streams in the U.S. on April 19, led by the album’s first single, “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone, with 18.4 million streams. (That’s more than double the number of streams generated on the first day of Swift’s last release, 1989 [Taylor’s Version]; its 21 songs spurred 110 million streams on its opening day.)

In total, the album earned 1.6 million equivalent album units in the U.S. on its first day. The last album to exceed a million units in a week was Swift’s own 1989 (Taylor’s Version) when it tallied 1.653 million units in its first week late last year (week ending Nov. 2, 2023).