Taylor Swift Beats Whitney Houston’s Record On Billboard 200 Chart

Taylor Swift has broken the record of Whitney Houston’s longstanding position for most cumulative weeks spent at number one on the Billboard 200 chart for a female artist.

Taylor’s total number of weeks for her chart-topping album, Folklore is around 47 weeks. It is a number higher than Whitney’s 46-week record. Whitney passed away at the age of 48 back in 2012. She has been on the top for several weeks since 1987.

Taylor achieved the milestone this week with an impressive streak of having her album on number one for ‘a seventh nonconsecutive week.’  According to Nielsen Music/MRC Data, Folklore, which was released on July 24, raked in 87,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. this week.

The total not only includes the album sales but also track equivalent albums and streaming equivalent albums. Taylor recently performed live in the ACM Awards 2020. She got a 97% uptick on her album’s sales right after that. The singer performed her song called, Betty on September 16 in Nashville.

Taylor performed live on stage after seven-years and also released the live version of the song to her album. When it comes to tracking sales, the song had its downloads combined with the original, studio version of Betty.

Whitney Houston’s grand total of 46 is based on the 14 weeks she spent at number one for her self-titled debut in 1986; the 11 weeks, her second album got her in 1987; The Bodyguard soundtrack’s 20-weeks, and the one week her 2009 album I Look To You filled atop the chart.  

The Beatles are the musician/group with the most number-one hits of all time with a grand total of 132 weeks. This is spanning from their ’19 chart-topping album’. Meanwhile, Elvis Presley endures 67 weeks at number one, making him the male solo artist with the most weeks, according to Billboard.  

Taylor Talks About ‘Betty‘

Billboard also recently announced the nominees for Billboard Music Awards. The award ceremony will be held on 14 October with Kelly Clarkson returning as host. Taylor earned six nominations, including Top Female Artist and the prestigious Top Artist award. 

The nominees are based on the original eligibility period between March 23, 2019, and March 14, 2020. However, the awards were originally scheduled for April 29, 2020, but got postponed because of the global pandemic.

The 2020 Billboard Music Awards is produced by Dick Clark Productions. Amy Thurlow, Mark Bracco, Barry Adelman, Linda Gierahn, Kelly Clarkson and Robert Deaton are executive producers. 

Taylor revealed a little something about her track ‘Betty‘ while introducing it on Country Radio. She talks about how in music people can slip into different identities and she can sing from other people’s perspectives. The singer reveals that is what she did on this track. She confirmed that she had in fact named all the characters of the track ‘Betty‘ after her friends’ kids.

Other than the obvious name, Betty, Inez and James are also mentioned in the track. It is the name of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ children. The couple hadn’t revealed the name of their youngest daughter. So, fans believe that the title name, Betty is the name of their youngest. The baby girl was born in October last year.

Either Ryan, Blake or Taylor have not confirmed if it is really the baby’s name. However, Blake took to social media to appreciate her friend’s new album, Folklore.

Taylor Swift has received a lot of praise for the surprise release of her eighth studio album. So, why won’t her best pal, Blake also support her and appreciate her?

Blake Lively Appreciates Taylor

Taylor released her eighth studio album called Folklore as a surprise, even for her record label. Her friend, Blake took to Instagram to add her own compliment to the numerous others.

She thanks Taylor and asks if they can all crawl into her piano with her and live in this album. Blake was referring to the mystical piano that Taylor crawled into to discover another world. The video of the song ‘Cardigan’, which also premiered on Friday as well.

This wouldn’t be the first time Lively and Reynolds’ family has been part of Swift’s music. In 2017, James had a small cameo on the 30-year-old singer’s track, “Gorgeous,” off her Reputation album.

Blake further continued saying Taylor’s album is just like her “full of heart, soul, humor, passion, intelligence, wit, whimsy, reality, imagination, strength, vulnerability”. She thanked Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, who produced the album, and Bon Iver. But the actress also mentioned William Bowery, who does not exist but is said to have co-written the songs with Taylor. Swifties suspect that Mr. Bowery is in fact, Joe Alwyn.