Taylor Swift earns 14th number 1 album with 'Tortured Poets,' tying Jay-Z

WASHINGTON (WJLA) — Taylor Swift will earn her 14th number-one album on the Billboard 200 chart with the release of her latest album, "The Tortured Poets Department," Billboard announced Sunday.

In its announcement, which Swift reposted on X, formerly Twitter, the music industry trade publication called the moment "historic." With this number-one album, Swift ties rapper and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z as the solo artist with the most number-one albums in the publication's over-100-year history of publishing music charts. Only The Beatles eclipse Swift and Jay-Z as the artist(s) with the most number-one albums with 19.

"The Tortured Poets Department" shot to number one on the back of 2.61 million equivalent album units for the first week of its release (April 19 to April 25), which included nearly 2 million units sold through physical and digital media, an incredibly rare feat in the streaming era. The album reportedly sold around 1.9 million copies between CDs, cassette tapes, vinyl LPs, and digital downloads with 859,000 of the sales dedicated to vinyl alone. Physical sales were likely bolstered by her decision to release four, separate versions of the album for CD, cassette, and LP, each with an exclusive bonus track and cover art. The 31 songs on the album, including the 15 additional songs on the deluxe "The Anthology" edition, generated 891.34 million on-demand streams.

According to Billboard, these figures represent the most streams for an album since the publication began measuring such metrics in 2014, as well as the second-largest week for equivalent album units earned. On the physical medium side of the numbers, the trade publication also noted that "Tortured Poets" had the third-most sales since album sales began to be tracked electronically in 1991 as well as the biggest week for vinyl sales for a single album in "the modern era."

In a post on X, Swift called the numbers "mind-blowing" and thanked her fans for "welcoming" the music on the album into their lives.

I’m completely floored by the love you’ve shown this album," she wrote. "Feeling completely overwhelmed.

Swift's eleventh original studio album -- not counting the re-recorded "Taylor's Versions" of her back catalog" -- which she announced while receiving a Grammy award for her previous album, "Midnights" received overall praise but strongly diverging opinions from music critics. While writers for publications like Rolling Stone magazine and The Independent calling it "wildly ambitious" and "irresistible" but The Washington Post and The New Yorker criticizing it for its length, especially with the double album, the weakness of the production, and a drop-off in the quality of Swift's lyrics.

"Is this the album that finally grants us societal permission to say that Swift is not a great lyricist? She can be, sometimes, but greatness isn’t a part-time job, and the thinning thinness of her words can make big emotions feel hollow," wrote The Post, questioning her lyrical output over many of her albums since "Fearless" and "Folklore."

"Swift’s lyrics are often focussed on her perseverance against all odds, but, these days, she is too omnipresent and powerful to make a very convincing underdog," added The New Yorker, nodding to her billionaire status and pop culture ubiquity and domination.

Whether or not people agree with the critics, Swift's output is still clearly a force to be economically reckoned with.