Topping the first week sales of Taylor Swift's 2014 album 1989 is a tall order, but her label Big Machine, is confident the singer will do so with her new release Reputation. The album, released Friday, will not be available on streaming services its first week, meaning that it will depend on pure album sales, both physical and on iTunes to make up the stats of its first week (plus the singles that were previously available across streaming services). According to sources close to Billboard, Big Machine is telling its accounts Reputation will reach 2 million sales first week, which would make it the highest sales week of Taylor's career.
Label analysts that spoke to Billboard provided comments on the figure which included "no way," and "must be worldwide."
It has been reported to the Washington Post that the album exceeded 400,000 pre-orders as of last week, surpassing Pink's Beautiful Trauma for the highest pure sales week of 2017, even before its release. A separate Billboard report shows that the album sold 700,000 copies its first day (likely including that pre-order number).
On Saturday, Hits Daily Double projected that Reputation would sell between 1.4 million and 1.5 million with streams, with 1.37 million to 1.47 million in pure sales. If those numbers are anywhere near the final sales for the week, Reputation will be both Taylor's highest sales week and easily the highest sales week of the year. Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. currently holds that title with 603,000 album equivalent units sold in its first week. Drake's More Life is the second largest opening week of the year with 505,000 album equivalent units.
In 2015, Adele's 25 set the record for the biggest sales week of all time. It was also withheld from streaming services, earning 3.4 million units in pure sales.
Taylor's new album features a guest appearance from Future, which marks her second major collaboration with a rapper. In 2015, Taylor Swift featured Kendrick Lamar on her remix to 1989's "Bad Blood," which gave Lamar his first No. 1 on the Hot 100. In 2017, Kendrick would earn his first solo No. 1 with the release of DAMN.'s lead single "HUMBLE."
Final sales numbers for Taylor's Reputation will be available at the end of this sales cycle.
