RED TIDE: Taylor Swift's Red now looks solidly north of 1 million in first-week sales, with a chance to possibly top Lady Gaga's 1.1 million-selling debut for Born This Way in May 2011. But that album, of course, included more than 400k in 99-cent sales from Amazon MP3. (10/23p)
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NEXT WEEK'S TOP 15: A big part of our job, these days, is coming up with new ways to think about how many records Taylor Swift is selling. So grok this: This week, Big Machine's big Red monster will likely sell more than the rest of the Top 50 albums combined. It may, in fact, have the biggest opening since 2005, when 50 Cent's The Massacre lived up to its name with a 1.14m bow. It's also due for the second-largest first week ever for a female artist, trailing only Britney Spears' massive "Oops!...I Did It Again," which opened with 1.319m. Here's how the field looks with the weekend looming: