So Taylor already has the biggest week ever for a non-UK act? Insane

One entry missing:

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome

It actually sold around a quarter of a million copies in its first week.

Source: Music Week (1993/04/10), Page 11

I looked into this. It shipped 250k and sold 180k as reported at the time. It's like the 750k for band aid and Wham's "last Christmas" 500k which is still quoted now but we now know are shipment figures.

Source: record mirror 17/11/84.

6 hours ago, Gezza said:

I looked into this. It shipped 250k and sold 180k as reported at the time. It's like the 750k for band aid and Wham's "last Christmas" 500k which is still quoted now but we now know are shipment figures.

Source: record mirror 17/11/84.

Ah, thank you for clarifying. I think since Alan Jones made that statement in Music Week, I just assumed it was a sales figure since it had advance pre-order sales of 1.1 million.

On 07/10/2025 at 12:26, nikos said:

Well most of these albums were released in 3 formats only ,1 LP, 1 Vinyl and 1 cassette so there is no comparison to today where you have 5 cd 5 vinyl and 5 tapes at least of the same album! Back then it meant so much more...! Those were the real records!!!

I massively disagree with this because streaming wasn't a thing back then. If streaming didn't exist and Taylor was as big as she is now I can pretty much bet my house on the fact she'd be doing 800k even with just one vinyl / cd / cassette. Times have changed you can't really compare the chart back then to now because streaming plays a HUGE part in sales being alot lower. The Fate of Ophelia doing 30 Million streams in a single day says it all really. The majority of these people who make up that 30M would have purchased a physical album if streaming wasn't around. Not to mention the rest of the weeks numbers.

The GP mainly stream I can't honestly think of a single friend who has purchased physical media in the last 10 years, perhaps the odd one to get a pre-sale code.

People generally prefer to spend their money on going to concerts and having the experience rather than buy physical formats (Hence why concert prices have become so high) and then just stream.

I also reckon alot of the GP don't even listen to a full album now they'll just back to a few tracks here and there (No one seems to have any time / patience now) hence the rise of Tiktok where video's are generally less than a minute.

Edited October 9Oct 9 by Mr. C. Joel

Exactly if it wasn't for this numpty ☝️ convincing me to buy jades then perries signed ones i hadn't purchased any physical media in nearly a decade 🤣🤣

2 minutes ago, 777666jason said:

Exactly if it wasn't for this numpty ☝️ convincing me to buy jades then perries signed ones i hadn't purchased any physical media in nearly a decade 🤣🤣

You helped them both secure that #3 album 😉

Just now, Mr. C. Joel said:

You helped them both secure that #3 album 😉

And now we need @777666jason to help Leigh-Anne also get a #3 album when she releases her album 🤣

Just now, DanielCarey said:

And now we need @777666jason to help Leigh-Anne also get a #3 album when she releases her album 🤣

Tbf at this stage if i dont I'll feel bad even if the albums awful (plus it would complete the set 🤣)

4 hours ago, Mr. C. Joel said:

I massively disagree with this because streaming wasn't a thing back then. If streaming didn't exist and Taylor was as big as she is now I can pretty much bet my house on the fact she'd be doing 800k even with just one vinyl / cd / cassette. Times have changed you can't really compare the chart back then to now because streaming plays a HUGE part in sales being alot lower. The Fate of Ophelia doing 30 Million streams in a single day says it all really. The majority of these people who make up that 30M would have purchased a physical album if streaming wasn't around. Not to mention the rest of the weeks numbers.

The GP mainly stream I can't honestly think of a single friend who has purchased physical media in the last 10 years, perhaps the odd one to get a pre-sale code.

People generally prefer to spend their money on going to concerts and having the experience rather than buy physical formats (Hence why concert prices have become so high) and then just stream.

I also reckon alot of the GP don't even listen to a full album now they'll just back to a few tracks here and there (No one seems to have any time / patience now) hence the rise of Tiktok where video's are generally less than a minute.

well what can i say out of 350k Swift has sold up to today in the Uk 285k are physicals so the 23 viriants played a huge part beacuse of the repeat buys. I am not sure as to whether her following is as big as you think or they are just very loyal and buy every sngle version of the 23 released. Back then though they only released one version of the album and not 23 viriants or else people like Michael jackson, madonna, whitney etc would sell tons of albums on their first week.

Tbf there is massive merit to what @Tafty is saying across the 8 London dates over 750k fans went to the eras tour, now if we add the over 400k from the edingburgh cardiff and liverpool date thats well over a million attendees, and thats just the ones that managed to go, so a huge portion of her fans are only streaming the album ether than actually buying

35 minutes ago, nikos said:

well what can i say out of 350k Swift has sold up to today in the Uk 285k are physicals so the 23 viriants played a huge part beacuse of the repeat buys. I am not sure as to whether her following is as big as you think or they are just very loyal and buy every sngle version of the 23 released. Back then though they only released one version of the album and not 23 viriants or else people like Michael jackson, madonna, whitney etc would sell tons of albums on their first week.

Her following is MASSIVE 3/4 of a million went to her Era's tour in London alone. She recently broke the record for the most likes on an instagram post for any living person, her posts about the variants run into the millions on instagram. No doubt some fans are buying multiple copies but it's probably less than we all think. I'd be very surprised if even 20% purchased more than 2/3 variants. Plus millions of streams (The whole album is still top 15) that doesn't happen from just a fanbase.

You're also missing the point streaming didn't exist way back then so people only had the option to buy a record and Taylor has done Millions of streams this week (Record breaking in fact) So I fail to see how you can compare those acts to now there's no way of knowing how many of those streamers would have purchased the album, like I said I'm literally beyond sure without streaming and given her star power she would have easily matched the sales of the artists you're speaking about (This week)

Edited October 9Oct 9 by Mr. C. Joel

Also loads of these historically huge selling albums ended up in charity shops, why would that happen if they were genuinely fans 🤔 or did they buy them out of curiosity as they couldn't stream them because it didnt exist back then 🤷

10 minutes ago, 777666jason said:

Also loads of these historically huge selling albums ended up in charity shops, why would that happen if they were genuinely fans 🤔 or did they buy them out of curiosity as they couldn't stream them because it didnt exist back then 🤷

We all know the general public aren't the best purveyors of fine art at the best of times, if they can't appreciate Susan Boyle - that's on them!

49 minutes ago, Jessie Where said:

We all know the general public aren't the best purveyors of fine art at the best of times, if they can't appreciate Susan Boyle - that's on them!

Poor Subo there are plenty of other "donations" too 🤣

Taylor just shy of the top 10.

12 The Life Of A Showgirl 423,444

Edited October 10Oct 10 by Ne Plus Ultra

Not too pleased she has overtaken the Beatles total.

12 30/12/2000 1 The Beatles 422,042

by 1,402 sales.

"The Life of a Showgirl" has debuted at #1 with 432,444 sales. They are:

• The 7th biggest first-week sales ever

• The 12th biggest weekly sales

• The second-biggest first week sales by a woman

• The biggest weekly sales for a non-British person

• The biggest first-week sales since 2017

Edited October 10Oct 10 by DanielCarey

Can never underestimate her but gosh thats gonna be tough to top next era

Just now, 777666jason said:

Can never underestimate her but gosh thats gonna be tough to top next era

Coming for 600k units next area