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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 13: Taylor Swift performs during the 2019 Z100 Jingle Ball at Madison ... [+] Square Garden on December 13, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)

Taylor Swifts Lover just reached its 20th week on the Billboard 200, and with it, a not-so-rosy milestone: Its tied for its lowest chart position to date, landing at No. 13 just as it did in its 16th week. Jokes aside, thats another stellar hold in a history of stellar holds for Lover, which thus far has spent all of its 20 weeks inside the Top 15 and 17 weeks inside the Top 10. Swifts latest album has already occupied the Top 10 for five more weeks than Reputation did throughout its entire run, supporting my previous prediction that, despite a smaller debut, Lover will have a longer shelf life than Reputation.

There are a few explanations for Lovers greater chart longevity, both qualitative and quantitative. But first, lets look at the circumstances of Reputations massive debut of 1.238 million album-equivalent units, of which 1.216 million were pure sales. Reputation was preceded by the explosive lead single Look What You Made Me Do, a chilly, opulent revenge fantasy put to music that inadvertently addressed her long-standing feud with Kanye and Kim Kardashian West. Following a full-scale social media blackout, Look What You Made Me Do shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and broke first-day streaming records, generating loads of hype for Reputation. Swift withheld the album from streaming services upon release in November 2017, forcing fans to buy a physical copy or download it on iTunes if they wanted to hear the feature-length version of her airing grievances and torching her professional nemeses. This excitement and scarcity allowed Reputation to perform like a blockbuster superhero movie sequel, topping the Billboard 200 in its first three weeks, during which it also enjoyed a boost from holiday shoppers.

Reputation posted excellent holds throughout its first 11 weeks, lingering in the Top 10 and returning to No. 1 in its fifth and seventh weeks. But once it fell out of the Top 10 in its 12th week (No. 13), it wilted quickly, tumbling to No. 23 in its 15th week and bouncing between the high teens and low 20s on the Billboard 200 over the next several frames. Despite its early meteoric success, Reputation polarized some listeners with its chilly electro-pop sound and bad girl persona. Reputation spawned one more Top 10 single in ... Ready for It? (No. 4) and was certified 3x platinum by the RIAA, but it ultimately proved a relative underperformer compared to the 9x platinum 1989 and 7x platinum Red. Swifts venomous new attitude and fixation on celebrity feuds were intriguing and salacious, but they were also exhausting. And while the actual songs on Reputation have aged much better than I would have initially predicted, its accompanying narrative and heavy media exposure burned out some listeners, making it her most commercially front-loaded album to date.

The circumstances of Lovers release were almost entirely different. It was the first Swift album to be made available physically and on streaming services simultaneously, and it was her first album since 2010s Speak Now to not spawn a No. 1 lead single. (And it has yet to do so: ME! and You Need to Calm Down both debuted and peaked at No. 2 behind Lil Nas Xs Old Town Road.) By releasing Lover concurrently on streaming services and physically, Swift gave listeners the chance to tune out of the album after a few songs or cherry-pick their favorites for future listening, rather than buying the full album once and then determining which songs they liked most. Since Swift historically does not perform as well as some of her pop star peers (Drake, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish) on streaming services, this release strategy likely resulted in fewer album-equivalent units than if she had only released Lover physically. As a result, Lover ended Swifts four-album streak of million-plus debuts, bowing with 867,000 units, of which 679,000 were pure salesa mammoth total for any pop star, but still a notable decline for Swift.

Yet what Lover sacrificed in first-week sales, it has recouped through repeat streams over the past several months. The album held strong in the Top 10 for its first 15 weeks, only dipping in week 16 thanks to an onslaught of Christmas albums flooding the Billboard 200. It has been jostled around over the past few weeks but never dipped below No. 13. So far, Lover has accumulated approximately 1.705 billion Spotify streams, versus Reputations 2.267 billion, despite coming out nearly two years earlier. And while Lovers lead single missed the top spot on the Hot 100, its second and third singles performed comparatively better than those on Reputation: You Need to Calm Down and Lover peaked at Nos. 2 and 10, respectively, while ... Ready for It? and End Game reached Nos. 4 and 18.

At a certain point, these granular statistics stop being useful for painting a portrait of an albums success. Still, I expect Lover to continue performing well on streaming services and eventually close the gap between it and Reputation. It helps that Lover has three more songs than Reputation to rack up more streaming-equivalent albums. More importantly, it helps that Lover contains more genuinely catchy pop songs that display greater emotional range for Swift. While Lover has not yielded another breakout or viral hit recently, songs like Cruel Summer, The Man and Cornelia Street have great commercial potential if Swift does choose to release one as a single. After her new documentary, Miss Americana, hits Netflix on Jan. 31, the album will likely see an uptick in sales and streams, particularly the films namesake track, Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince.

Simply put,Loveris more musically and narratively diverse thanReputation, which endears it to repeated listens over a longer period of time. According to the RIAA, Lover still has a long way to go to match the sales of Reputation, as it has thus far only been certified platinum. (Notably, it was the only album of 2019 to sell 1 million pure copies.) But theres plenty of time for that to change, and we shouldnt expect Lover to depart the Top 20 anytime soon.

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See the rest here:
Why Taylor Swifts Lover Has Greater Chart Longevity Than Reputation - Forbes

This entry was posted on January 18, 2020 at 8:41 pm and is filed under Longevity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |