Taylor Swift makes history: Top 10 of Billboard Hot 100 (2022)
The artist’s latest album, Midnights, has become the best-selling release of 2022.
The singer-songwriter surpasses Drake, who held the previous record of nine top 10 singles in September 2021. Before him, the Beatles had eight top 10 hits in 1964.
Swift’s chart dominance stems from her latest album, Midnights , which has become the best-selling release of 2022.
“10 out of 10 on the Hot 100? On my tenth album? I’M IN SHAMBLES,” the pop star tweeted.
10 out of 10 of the Hot 100??? On my 10th album??? I AM IN SHAMBLES. https://t.co/q1n5Zc6pYA
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 31, 2022
The 32-year-old holds the number one spot with the single Anti-Hero , whose chorus, “It’s me. Hello! I’m the problem, it’s me,” has quickly become a TikTok trend.
The rest of the top 10 includes other tracks from the album such as Lavender Haze , Maroon , Snow On The Beach , Bejeweled , and Karma .
All 13 songs from the standard edition of Midnights enter the top 15, interrupted only by Sam Smith’s Unholy at 11 and Steve Lacy’s Bad Habits at 12.
The seven bonus tracks on the “deluxe edition” of Midnights appear between numbers 20 and 45.
Best Sheet Music download from our Library.
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Successes born of insomnia
Swift took her fans by surprise when in August, during the final moments of the 2022 MTV Awards, she announced the release of the new album.
She has described the album as the story of “ 13 sleepless nights spread throughout my life ” and “a journey through terrors and sweet dreams”.
Midnights also marks the star’s return to the pop style of her pre-pandemic albums, following the homemade indie-folk of Evermore and Folklore, both released in 2020.
But the subdued sound of those records persists, and their nightly tales are painted in more subdued tones than hits like Shake It Off and Lover.
Part of its success is due to a clever marketing campaign, in which the album was released in multiple collectible formats, including four vinyl editions that combine to form a clock .
But Billboard reported that Swift’s Top 10 breakout came from streams alone , before sales and airplay were counted.
Midnights debuted at number one on the US album chart, selling 1.4 million copies , of which more than a million were on CD and vinyl, a number almost unheard of in the streaming era.
Similarly, the album tops the chart in the UK with sales of 204,000 copies, making it the first album to break the 200,000 sales since Adele’s 30 just under a year ago.
Surprisingly, that figure represents the biggest sales in the first week of Swift’s career on the UK charts. The previous record for her was for the album “1989”, which sold 90,300 copies in 2014.
However, she is unable to replicate her dominance of the US chart in the UK due to a rule that only allows three songs by an artist to appear in the Top 100 at the same time.
Without that restriction, Swift would have had eight of the top 10 singles this week. Instead, she has to be content with being number one ( Anti-Hero ), three ( Lavender Haze ), and four ( Snow On The Beach ).
Last week’s number one, Sam Smith’s Unholy , clings to the number two spot, denying Swift the entire top of the list.
Magazine Billboard said that Swift’s latest album helped her break several records.
She now has the most top 10 hits among women in the chart’s history , with a total of 40 surpassing Madonna’s 38. Among all artists, she is second only to Drake, who has 59 top 10s.
Midnights is also the first album in history to spawn 10 top 10 singles on the chart.
Swift also broke records for the most streams of a single album in one day on Spotify, Apple and Amazon Music.
In the UK, Midnights sold 62,000 copies on vinyl alone, the highest weekly sale for any vinyl album in the 21st century.