The amazing statistics on Taylor Swift's "Red" sales just keep coming.
The country/pop star's album
sold a massive 1.208 million copies in the U.S. last week according to Nielsen SoundScan -- marking the eighth-largest sales week for an album since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991.
"Red" also debuts at No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and Country Albums charts, marking Swift's third and fifth leaders on the respective tallies.
Further, "Red" earned the biggest sales week for any album in over a decade. The last title to ring up a larger sum in a frame was Eminem's "The Eminem Show," which sold 1.322 million in its first full week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated June 15, 2002.
Another fun fact to ponder: "Red" sold two albums every second last week in the U.S. There were 604,800 seconds during the SoundScan selling week between 12 AM on Monday, Oct. 22 and 11:59 PM on Sunday, Oct. 28.
And, Swift's "Red" accounted for 19.3% of all albums sold in the U.S. last week -- or nearly one out of every five albums purchased.
Among country albums, the stat grows even more stunning: "Red's" share of the country market was a whopping 62.6%.
With "Red's" smashing start, the
set immediately becomes the third-biggest selling album of the year. Only Adele's "21" (4.114 million) and One Direction's "Up All Night" (1.316 million) have sold more in 2012.
If "Red" overtakes "21" (perhaps unlikely, but possible) to become the largest selling set of the year, it will mark the second time Swift has earned the year's top selling set. Her "Fearless" was 2009's biggest album, with 3.217 million moved that year.
In order to bypass "21,"
Swift would have to sell more copies of "Red" than she's ever sold of a single album in a calendar year. That's a tall order, but with Swift, anything is possible.
The most units Swift has sold of a single album in a given calendar year is 3.217 million in 2009 with "Fearless." In 2010, her "Speak Now" set moved 2.960 million and was the No. 3 biggest album of that year. ("Speak Now" came out almost exactly two years to the day before "Red," hitting retailers on Oct. 25, 2010. It bowed with 1.047 million sold in its first week.)
Even if "Red" doesn't finish 2012 as the No. 1 selling album, it seems a lock as one of the year's top 10 sellers. That's familiar territory for the singer/songwriter, who has had an album among the year's top 10 sellers in all but one year since 2007. (Only in 2011 did she miss the year-end top 10 tally, when "Speak Now" ranked as the No. 15 title of the year with 967,000.)
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