With Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift expected to drop 4th-quarter/holiday season albums in 2012, will Gaga be able to secure another #1 debut? Let's take a look at their history:

TAYLOR SWIFT

Taylor Swift
Opening Week: 40,000
Sales to Date: 5,170,000

Fearless
Opening Week: 592,000
Sales to Date: 6,507,000

Speak Now
Opening Week: 1,047,000
Sales to Date: 4,015,000

LADY GAGA

The Fame
Opening Week: 24,000
Sales to Date: 4,312,000

The Fame Monster
Opening Week: 151,000
Sales to Date: 1,510,000

Born This Way
Opening Week: 1,108,000
Sales to Date: 2,100,000

Also, take into consideration the fact that Gaga's will be an EP, and that even if they don't open in the same week, Taylor's last album reached 3M by the end of the year (6 weeks, I believe).

So, apparently it's not going to let me add the poll.

at Gaga's dark covers next to Taylor's happy ones.

And possibly.

I will beat her... but I am a HUGE fan.

Not if they open the same week. Not at all. So her label won't let that happen.

Yes.

Duh she'll debut at #1

I remember when Speak Now's released date was announced, everyone stayed clear away from that week.

she'll debut at #1.. what makes you think that taylor will release hers the exact same week?

Depending on how Interscope handles the release, I think Taylor could block Gaga on a non-opening week.

Taylor will probably debut at #1. I'm not sure if Gaga can do it without hype and with an EP, though. We'll see.

Not in the US.

Unless they release on the same week then yes. I think Gaga's next album will open with about 600-700k and Taylor will get 800k+ in the US.

Well, I thought Gaga could do it until you said it was an EP, not so sure any more but it might... unless Taylor's new album is similar to '21', the theme is heartbreak.

There is no force releasing an album this year that could block Taylor. Despite the lack of Grammy hype, I think she'll open 900K-1.2M again.

Well, there might be Adele.

I do think that Gaga will debut at number 1 and I don't think that they would release at the same week. The only time I think they'd allow that to happen is if it was a Holiday release like on November 23rd and even then I think Gaga may actually be able to debut at number 1 with Swift there or something. Kinda sucks that TFM was sold as a re-release but I guess they just really wanted that Number 1 for The Fame.

Interscope isn't dumb.