Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl has officially dethroned Adele’s 25 for the biggest opening week for an album in the streaming era, as Swift’s latest record has surged to over 3.5 million album units this week so far.
Source: HollywoodReporter
According to Billboard, which cites data from Luminate, The Life of a Showgirl has sold an astounding 3.2 million copies alone, with an extra 300,000 units coming from streaming of the album. The combined 3.5 million is the biggest opening since Luminate began electronically documenting music sales back in 1991. Adele currently holds the record for most individual sales (not including streams) with over 3.3 million when 25 debuted in 2015, though Swift still has another day of potential sales figures that could put her over the top.
Swift’s strong numbers shirk one of her more polarizing release weeks in years, with The Life of a Showgirl garnering mixed critical reviews. Swifties clearly haven’t cared, as the album quickly set records for most streamed album in a day for 2025, and they’ve clearly been more than willing to shell out extra for the several dozen different physical variants of the album Swift has dropped so far that have helped boost those strong album sales numbers.
Swift herself doesn’t seem to mind the criticism either, telling Zane Lowe in an interview this week that “I welcome the chaos.
“The rule of show business is if it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping,” Swift said.
These are strong figures even for Swift, who is one of the only artists left who could reliably sell a million units in a week in a streaming era that has significantly brought album sales down. Last year’s The Tortured Poets Department opened with over 2.6 million units, while Midnights opened with about 1.5 million units. Swift is dominating both the album charts and the box office, with her theatrical Album Release Party making a combined 50.1 million domestically and oversees.
Final first-week numbers will be revealed this weekend. The No. 1 is locked, and the question now becomes how much of the Hot 100 Swift will have to herself next week. Both Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department dominated the entire top-10 on that chart, and Life of a Showgirl will likely do the same.