Taylor Swift’s new album, Lover, was so big in its first week in the U.S., not only did it log the biggest week for any album -- in terms of either equivalent album units earned or albums sold -- since her last release, reputation, in 2017, but Lover also accounted for 27% of all album sales in the country.
According to Nielsen Music, Lover sold 679,000 copies in the week ending Aug. 29. That amounts to 27% of the total volume of all albums sold in the U.S. that week: 2.487 million (across all formats of albums: CDs, digital albums, cassettes, vinyl LPs, etc.). Or, think of it another way: a little more than one in four albums sold in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 29 were Lover.
Having one album’s sales account for a large portion of the industry’s overall sales isn’t a new concept. Swift’s last album, reputation, held 29% of the market in its first week (1.216 million of 4.149 million), while the first week of Adele’s 25 carved out a huge 41% of the market (3.38 million of 8.2 million).