Taylor Swift’s new album and single stay top of the chart for second week
By Charlotte McLaughlin, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter
Taylor Swift has secured the coveted double chart domination for a second consecutive week.
The pop megastar’s tenth studio album Midnights and its lead single Anti-Hero both stayed at number one.
She faced competition this week from The Beatles at number two with a reissue of Revolver, which stayed number one for seven consecutive weeks back in 1966.
Swift’s electronica-style album has become the fastest-selling album of the year so far, overtaking Harry Styles’s chart-topping Harry’s House, which previously held the 2022 title, according to the Official Charts Company.
The 32-year-old artist overtook Madonna to set a new official chart record by achieving the fastest succession of nine UK number one albums of any female artist.
Midnights follows Swift’s previous eight UK chart-topping albums, all achieved consecutively: 2012’s Red, 2014 release 1989, 2017’s Reputation, 2019’s Lover, 2020’s Folklore, 2020’s Evermore and re-recordings Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), both released in 2021.
The Beatles hold the overall record, racking up nine chart-toppers in five years and seven months.
Her success ends Arctic Monkeys’ streak of six UK number one albums and their new seventh studio album, The Car, has slipped from number two last week to number five this week.
Taylor Swift The Eras Tour, a journey through the musical eras of her career, was announced earlier this week.
The American leg of the tour will kick off on March 18 in Glendale, Arizona, with no international dates scheduled yet.
Following its release, Midnights racked up 204,000 chart sales in seven days, more than doubling Swift’s previous personal best of 90,300, which she achieved with her album 1989, released in 2014.
It claimed the biggest first week of album sales since Adele’s 30 was released last November and takes the title of the most streamed album of the year in its opening week, with 72.5 million streams across the seven days.
Shortly after its release, Midnights also broke the Spotify record for most-streamed album in a day.
Swift also became the first artist to claim the top 10 slots on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart after the release of her latest album.
The previous record was held by US rapper Drake, who had nine of the top 10 songs on chart for a week in September 2021.
