Taylor Swift has earned her eighth number one album on the UK Official Albums Chart with the release of ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’.
The ‘All Too Well’ singer has been re-recording her old albums after her original masters were sold by her former record label, and her latest re-release has soared to the top of the albums chart in its first week.
‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ topped the list on Friday (19.11.21) with 72,000 sales – placing it above ‘Voyage’ by ABBA which was last week’s number one, and her friend Ed Sheeran’s latest release ‘Equals’, which was number one the week before that.
The sales for Taylor’s record also mean it surpasses Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ to claim the biggest week for a female artist this year so far.
And there’s even more good news for Taylor, as the figures are 10,000 units higher than the first week sales of ‘Red’s original release, which shifted 62,000 units when it hit shelves in November 2012.
‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ notched up almost 57,000 physical and digital sales and is now the fastest-selling female solo artist album of 2021 so far.
The latest chart achievement marks the fifth number one album in less than three years for the 31-year-old musician and comes after she set a record earlier this year when ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’ became her third chart-topping record in less than 12 months.
Taylor now matches Kylie Minogue for solo artists with eight Official UK Number 1 albums, and the only female artist to have more is Madonna with 12.
The ‘Cardigan’ hitmaker is also the first and only female artist to have eight UK Number 1 albums this century.
Elsewhere in the albums chart, new entries take over the fourth and fifth spots this week, with Little Mix’s ‘Between Us’ and ‘The Tears of Hercules’ by Sir Rod Stewart filling those places respectively.
And in the Official Singles Charts, it’s Adele who continues to reign supreme, as her track ‘Easy On Me’ has once again claimed the number one spot.
Adele – who dropped her highly-anticipated album ‘30’ on Friday – has now been sitting at the top of the charts for five consecutive weeks with the hit single, meaning it now ties with ‘Someone Like You’ for the singer’s longest-running number one.
Ed Sheeran held onto second place with ‘Shivers’, but ‘Bad Habits’ dropped to fourth as Taylor Swift’s newest version of ‘All Too Well’ swooped in to take third.