Nashville, TN (Top40 Charts/ Big Machine Records) Red, the fourth studio album from six-time Grammy Award winner Taylor Swift, was released worldwide just yesterday (October 22nd), and the disc is already notching striking sales numbers and widespread critical acclaim.
Red topped the all-genre Top Albums chart at iTunes within 36 minutes of release, and first day sales at iTunes alone topped 262,000 albums. Taylor scored 13 of the Top 20 songs on iTunes, with the song "
Everything Has Changed" taking the #1 position on the all-genre Top Songs chart. Thus far, Red has sold 4.5 million song downloads to date at iTunes in the U.S. alone. At Target, Taylor's Speak Now album had the highest one-week sales in the retailer's history. Red has now set the record for Day One sales and is on pace to exceed Speak Now's one week results.
Worldwide, Red reached #1 at iTunes on the first day of release in 32 countries, including the UK, Australia, Singapore, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Denmark, Venezuela, Thailand, and Ireland.
With Red, Taylor has set a new Billboard record -- for the most rapid accumulation of 50 Hot 100 hits in history, reaching the milestone just six years and one month after her 2006 chart debut.
Aretha Franklin previously held the record, with a stretch of just over 14 years and six months, and Taylor is one of only five women in the 54-year history of the chart to reach this milestone (joining Franklin, Madonna, Connie Francis and Dionne Warwick).
Taylor Swift's Red is also impressive in its widespread critical acclaim, garnering stellar praise from top critics around the globe.
"Taylor Swift is a turbine of artistic ambition and superstar drama, and Red is a 16-song geyser of willful eclecticism. Her self-discovery project is one of the best stories in pop. When she's really on, her songs are like tattoos." - Rolling Stone
"The writer
James Dickey once described a poet as 'someone who stands outside in the rain, hoping to be struck by lightning.' He could've been talking about Taylor Swift. Sublime…Red should be required listening…'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' is the snarkiest pop kiss-off, like, ever." --Entertainment Weekly
"Taylor Swift's Red burns with confidence. [She] seems to have crossed some sort of emotional threshold [to] the assured words and music of a star. There are no bumps on Red. Only clean, perfectly rendered American popular music." - Los Angeles Times
"Taylor Swift's Red is another winner. What Swift does better than anyone [is] she connects with clear, concise, relatable love songs that are thrown like punches and steeped in everyday details." - The Washington Post
"Red puts Swift the artist front and center with big, beefy hooks that transcend her country roots for a genre-spanning record that reaches heights unseen. Red is her most interesting full-length to date, but it probably won't be when all is said and done in her career." - Billboard
"Fantastic. This is an album she's spent her entire career building toward. Red is, in every conceivable way, her bid for artistic freedom, not only her most mature and accomplished album, but also her most unapologetic. In short, this is her album, on her terms….the album of her (still young) life. Red may be the beginning of her golden age, but really, it only sets the stage for things to come. And I'm willing to bet we'll be amazed by what's next." --MTV News
"It's clear that Red is another chapter in one of the finest fantasies pop music has ever constructed." - The Guardian (UK)
"Swift seems to know just the right phrase to pull you inside her narratives." - The Observer (UK)
"Swift has grown into one of the sharpest songwriters of her generation. Red is all the proof you need. All in all, color me impressed." - The Sun (Canada)
Taylor is making multiple television appearances this week in support of Red. Her Times
Square Concert this morning was the largest in the history of "Good Morning America," and tonight she appears on the "Late Show with
David Letterman" (CBS). Tomorrow (10/24) she will be live on ABC's "The View," and on
Thursday she will make a special concert appearance on "The
Ellen DeGeneres Show." On Friday, she will be a guest on ABC's "Katie" with Katie Couric, and on Friday night she will be featured on ABC's "All
Access Nashville with Katie Couric - A Special Edition of 20/20." Next week, Taylor will perform on ABC's "Dancing With The Stars" (Tuesday, October 30th) and also on the "41st Annual CMA Awards" (November 1st on ABC).
Taylor is featured on the covers of the current issues of Rolling Stone, Glamour, and Billboard magazines.
