Taylor Swift’s new album eclipses her past triumphs

While the rest of the music world tiptoes around streaming algorithms and TikTok trends, Taylor Swift just rewrote the rules of pop stardom, again. 

Her dazzling new album, The Life of a Showgirl, has stormed the UK charts with a jaw-dropping 3,04,000 copies sold in just three days, making it the biggest opening week of 2025 and outpacing even her own recent blockbusters.

Yes, you read that right: 304,000 copies in three days. That’s more than Ed Sheeran’s Play (67,000), Sam Fender’s People Watching (the only other 100k+ week this year), and every single chart-topper this summer combined. In fact, Swift’s opening is so massive, it’s the strongest UK debut since Ed Sheeran’s Divide in 2017, when he moved a staggering 6,72,000 units in a full week.

But Taylor wasn’t done.

Across the Atlantic, she shattered records like confetti at a stadium show: 2.7 million albums sold in the US on Friday alone, her biggest sales week ever, and the second-highest single-week total in history, trailing only Adele’s 25 (3.38 million in 2015). And in true Swiftian fashion, she didn’t just sell albums—she turned vinyl into gold.

1.2 million copies of The Life of a Showgirl were snapped up on wax, obliterating her own previous record (859,000 for The Tortured Poets Department) and cementing her as the undisputed Queen of the Vinyl Revival. With eight collectible variants, each dripping in glitter, lore, and secret messages, Swifties didn’t just buy an album. They bought a treasure hunt.

And just when you thought she’d peaked? She topped the global box office.

Her 89-minute cinematic event, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party Of A Showgirl, raked in a stunning $46 million (£34 million) worldwide over the weekend—beating Hollywood blockbusters without a single explosion or superhero cape. The film, part concert, part confessional, part visual love letter to Travis Kelce, featured the premiere of her haunting new video The Fate of Ophelia, intimate studio footage, and Taylor’s own wry, witty commentary on fame, football, and feline-inspired revenge.

Crafted during “stolen moments” on the European leg of her record-shattering Eras Tour, The Life of a Showgirl is equal parts romantic euphoria and industry exposé—chronicling her whirlwind romance with NFL star Kelce while dropping thinly veiled barbs at label execs, exes, and the machinery of celebrity.

Critics are split—Variety called it “contagiously joyful,” while the Financial Times sniffed it “lacked sparkle”—but fans couldn’t care less. With Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet (444,000 year-to-date) currently holding the title of 2025’s best-seller, Swift is on track to dethrone her own collaborator (Carpenter features on the album’s title track) before Halloween.

And when BBC Radio 2’s Scott Mills gently asked if this might be her “final bow” before retiring into domestic bliss with Kelce, Taylor fired back with signature sass:

“That’s a shockingly offensive thing to say. It’s not why people get married—so that they can quit their job.” 

At a time when most artists celebrate 10,000 sales as a win, Taylor Swift isn’t just dominating the charts—she’s redefining what’s possible in music, film, and fandom.

The Life of a Showgirl isn’t just an album. It’s a cultural supernova. And the world? Still spinning in her orbit