It’s been one hell of a week for Taylor Swift. Ever since the global pop superstar dropped her new single, Look What You Made Me Do, in the early hours of Friday, August 25, she has been the only story in town for the worldwide music business.
Audio and video streaming records tumbled as she shot to her first-ever UK No.1 single. And airplay and sales stats were also impressive as the star’s latest reinvention captured media attention and the public imagination.
And so, as the biz braces itself for Reputation (out November 10), likely to be the biggest global album of Q4, Music Week eases you into the week by putting all the numbers from Swift’s record-shattering first seven days into one place. Enjoy!
65,415
UK first-week chart sales for Look What You Made Me Do
5,300,000
Number of first-week UK streams for Look What You Made Me Do
4,169
Number Shake It Off sold last week as it returned to the chart
2,876
Number of plays on UK radio for Look What You Made Me Do
50.25 million
Combined UK radio audience for Look What You Made Me Do last week
28
Number of times BBC Radio 1 played Look What You Made Me Do last week (more than any other record)
165.27m
Number of radio impacts on EU Airplay chart for Look What You Made Me Do
19m
Number of YouTube views for the Look What You Made Me Do lyric video in its first 24 hours (a new record).
43.2m
Number of YouTube views for the Look What You Made Me Do official video in its first 24 hours (a new record).
10,129,087
Number of Spotify plays for Look What You Made Me Do in its first day
24,875,413
Monthly listeners on Spotify for Swift, who only rejoined the platform in June
1,131,741
UK sales for Swift’s last album, 1989, to date
400,000
The projected number of downloads (yes, downloads) in the US for Look What You Made Me Do’s first week
14 billion
The combined number of hastily-composed Taylor Swift thinkpieces and social media memes put on the internet over the last 10 days* (*OK, we might have made that one up)
On September 3, Swift dropped a second new song, Ready For It. A taster was aired during ESPN's coverage of a college football match between Alabama and Florida state, subsequently the full track was released on Spotify. The official YouTube clip has so far notched 3,499,171 views.
For more on the Swift phenomenon, including reaction from her UK label boss Ted Cockle and Right Said Fred’s publisher responding to Swift’s surprise interpolation of I’m Too Sexy, see the new edition of Music Week, out today. To subscribe and never miss a big music biz story, click here.
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