CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Billboard Magazine reports:

As expected, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department makes a gigantic debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated May 4), securing the superstar her 14th chart-topping album. She ties Jay-Z for the most No. 1s among soloists in the nearly-70-year history of the chart. Only The Beatles, with 19 No. 1s, have more.

The Tortured Poets Department launches with 2.61 million equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending April 25, with traditional album sales (purchases of digital download albums, CDs, vinyl LPs and cassettes) comprising 1.914 million of that sum. Of that sales figure, vinyl sales represent a staggering 859,000.

With 1.914 million sold, The Tortured Poets Department is instantly the top-selling album of 2024, year-to-date. The second-biggest selling album, counting weekly sales from January through the present, is Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, with 228,000 copies sold in total.

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