Superstar

One Million Copes of "folklore" Sold This Year

A complete list of accolades and awards Taylor Swift has collected over the last decade is undoubtedly overwhelming. Most recently, her latest album has become the first one to sell 1 million copies in 2020, from any artist. Her last album, Lover, was also the only album to sell over 1 million copies in the US just last year. A few years ago, an album like hers would sell a million copies in just a single week. These days, people stream all of their music and have no need for a hard copy of the music.

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A New Record

When Folklore was released in July, Swift sold CDs, vinyl records, and other merch on her website. On October 17th, she announced that she would be be releasing a limited quantity of signed folklore CDs. This new release pushed her back to the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, and made this Swift's 9th album to sell over one million copies. With only 8 full length studio albums and a holiday collection, these numbers are incredibly impressive.

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Sales vs. Streams

Most music listeners in 2020 don't buy an album individually unless they really want to support the artist. The reason for this is the ease of access to streaming on platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Listening to music on your phone is so easy and convenient, much more so than carrying around a CD or record player. Even in your car, you probably connect your phone via aux more often than putting in a CD. Hard copies of music are bought more as collectibles or novelty items. This trend explains the significant drop in Taylor Swift's sales since Reputation came out in 2017. Reputation, Lover, and Folklore aren't worse albums than her earlier ones, people just weren't as excited to own a physical copy or pay to download the album.