XPost: rec.music.classical.recordings
NYT: Taylor Swift's 'Folklore' Still No. 1, Six Weeks Later
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/arts/music/taylor-swifts-folklore-billboard.html
By Ben Sisario
In April, as the pandemic brought the concert industry to a halt,
Taylor Swift canceled all her tour dates for the year. "I'm so sad I
won't be able to see you guys in concert this year, but I know this
is the right decision," she wrote on Twitter, giving her fans no
indication they would see her again, in any form, until 2021.
Three months later, she emerged from quarantine with "Folklore," a
classic surprise release that has dominated the Billboard album
chart this summer. Now it is in its sixth week at No. 1, the longest
streak at the top of the chart for any album since Drake's "Views"
four years ago.
In its sixth week out, "Folklore" had the equivalent of 90,000 album
sales in the United States, including streams as well as copies sold
as a complete package. After selling 17 physical versions of the
album through her website for the first two weeks, Swift has lately
been surprising fans by sending autographed copies of the CD to
indie record stores.
In the United States, "Folklore" has sold 860,000 copies of its
complete album version--counting downloads as well as its various
physical versions--and nearly 700 million streams. Around the
world, the album is "nearing" two billion streams, according to
Swift's label, Republic, a division of the giant Universal Music
Group.
Also this week, Metallica opens at No. 4 with "S&M2," a live album
recorded with the San Francisco Symphony, and Katy Perry's new
album, "Smile," starts at No. 5. Two posthumous rap albums hold
their positions just below "Folklore": Pop Smoke's "Shoot for the
Stars Aim for the Moon" is No. 2 and Juice WRLD's "Legends Never
Die" is No. 3.
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