Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ Becomes First Million-Selling Album of 2020 in the US

Taylor Swift’s Folklore jumped back to the No. 1 position on the Billboard 200 chart for the eighth week. Now it has also become the first album that sells a million copies in 2020.

The singer’s last album, Lover was also the only album of last year to sell a million copies. According to Nielsen Music’s data, copies of another 57,000 were sold in the US leading to sales crossing a million. This marks the first album of this year to sell a million copies.

Taylor’s Lover sold almost 1.09 million last year making it the only album to sell a million in 2019. The singer recently 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 last month 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 Talks About ‘Betty‘

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 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.