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Taylor Swift scores second-biggest UK charts opening week ever with The Life of a Showgirl

Taylor Swift’s 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, has given the US pop star her biggest-ever opening week on the UK chart. It is her 14th No 1 album (she has also scored No 1s with the Taylor’s Version rerecordings of previous albums), moving 432,000 combined units in its first week on the Official Chart. It is second only to Ed Sheeran’s ÷, released in 2017 to 672,000 first-week sales. Only the Beatles and Robbie Williams have had more UK No 1 albums than Swift, with 15 apiece. At a concert in London last night, Williams admitted that he had pushed back the release of his album Britpop from last Friday – The Life of a Showgirl’s release day – to 2026 because of Swift: “I could pretend it’s not, but it is. It’s selfish. I want a 16th No 1 album.” Swift has now surpassed Elvis Presley, with 13 No 1 albums, and is tied with the Rolling Stones. No one else has notched up so many No 1 albums in such a short time: the Official Charts Company said that since 2012, the 35-year-old pop star has averaged more than one a year. The Life of a Showgirl also scores the biggest first-week UK vinyl sales since modern chart records began in 1994, as well as the most UK album streams in a single week. Swift also claims the entire top three songs in the UK Top 40. Lead single The Fate of Ophelia is at No 1, with the biggest opening week since 2021’s Christmas No 1, LadBaby’s Sausage Rolls for Everyone featuring Ed Sheeran and Elton John. At No 2 is Opalite and 3 is Elizabeth Taylor. Official Charts’ chief executive, Martin Talbot, said in a statement: “What an incredible week for Taylor Swift, which has topped the many other incredible weeks of her career. Her list of achievements this week is extraordinary, not least the fact that The Life of a Showgirl has just registered comfortably the biggest first week in the UK of her career. Taylor is bigger than she has ever been in the UK – and shows absolutely no sign of letting up.” In the US, Swift beat Adele’s first-week sales record, selling 3.5m units in under a week with two days of the chart window still to go; in 2015, Adele sold 3.482m copies of her third album, 25, in its initial release week. Swift’s previous album, last year’s The Tortured Poets Department, sold 2.51m units in its first week. The new album’s accompanying cinematic release, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, topped the global box office, making $34m at the US over its three-day release, and £3.5m in the UK. The Guardian’s Adrian Horton rated it two stars. The record has received mixed reviews, from five stars at Rolling Stone to one star from the Standard and two from the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis. In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Swift indicated that she was aware of the divided response. “I welcome the chaos. The rule of showbusiness is if it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping,” she said. “And art, I have a lot of respect for people’s subjective opinions on art. I’m not the art police. It’s like everybody is allowed to feel exactly how they want. And what our goal is as entertainers is to be a mirror.”

Laura Snapes •
Taylor Swift scores second-biggest UK charts opening week ever with The Life of a Showgirl
Taylor Swift’s 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, has given the US pop star her biggest-ever opening week on the UK chart. It is her 14th No 1 album (she has also scored No 1s with the Taylor’s Version rerecordings of previous albums), moving 432,000 combined units in its first week on the Official Chart. It is second only to Ed Sheeran’s ÷, released in 2017 to 672,000 first-week sales. Only the Beatles and Robbie Williams have had more UK No 1 albums than Swift, with 15 apiece. At a concert in London last night, Williams admitted that he had pushed back the release of his album Britpop from last Friday – The Life of a Showgirl’s release day – to 2026 because of Swift: “I could pretend it’s not, but it is. It’s selfish. I want a 16th No 1 album.” Swift has now surpassed Elvis Presley, with 13 No 1 albums, and is tied with the Rolling Stones. No one else has notched up so many No 1 albums in such a short time: the Official Charts Company said that since 2012, the 35-year-old pop star has averaged more than one a year. The Life of a Showgirl also scores the biggest first-week UK vinyl sales since modern chart records began in 1994, as well as the most UK album streams in a single week. Swift also claims the entire top three songs in the UK Top 40. Lead single The Fate of Ophelia is at No 1, with the biggest opening week since 2021’s Christmas No 1, LadBaby’s Sausage Rolls for Everyone featuring Ed Sheeran and Elton John. At No 2 is Opalite and 3 is Elizabeth Taylor. Official Charts’ chief executive, Martin Talbot, said in a statement: “What an incredible week for Taylor Swift, which has topped the many other incredible weeks of her career. Her list of achievements this week is extraordinary, not least the fact that The Life of a Showgirl has just registered comfortably the biggest first week in the UK of her career. Taylor is bigger than she has ever been in the UK – and shows absolutely no sign of letting up.” In the US, Swift beat Adele’s first-week sales record, selling 3.5m units in under a week with two days of the chart window still to go; in 2015, Adele sold 3.482m copies of her third album, 25, in its initial release week. Swift’s previous album, last year’s The Tortured Poets Department, sold 2.51m units in its first week. The new album’s accompanying cinematic release, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, topped the global box office, making $34m at the US over its three-day release, and £3.5m in the UK. The Guardian’s Adrian Horton rated it two stars. The record has received mixed reviews, from five stars at Rolling Stone to one star from the Standard and two from the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis. In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Swift indicated that she was aware of the divided response. “I welcome the chaos. The rule of showbusiness is if it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping,” she said. “And art, I have a lot of respect for people’s subjective opinions on art. I’m not the art police. It’s like everybody is allowed to feel exactly how they want. And what our goal is as entertainers is to be a mirror.”
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