New York, NY (Top40 Charts) In just 24 hours, Taylor Swift's blockbuster new album Lover became this year's highest selling album in the U.S. Taylor makes history yet again by earning "the biggest first-week total for any album since her own Reputation in 2017," according to Billboard. Globally, Lover (Republic Records) has surpassed more than 3 million in consumption. In the U.S. it has eclipsed 1 million-plus total consumption year-to-date and is approaching 700k in pure album sales this week.
Lover smashed the all-time pre-sale record at Target and eclipsed debut physical sales of reputation. In addition, the album has hit #1 in 98 countries on iTunes. On the Spotify U.S. chart, every song debuted in the top 25 with 9 in the top 10. Lover also broke the global record as the "top album debut in the history of Amazon Music."
Around the world, Lover triumphs at #1 including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the U.K. and more to be announced. Lover has also made history becoming China's most consumed full-length international album of 2019, setting a new record by an international artist for first week full-length album consumption - more than doubling the previous record.
Republic Records Founder & CEO Monte Lipman comments, "Taylor's brilliant body of work has shattered industry metrics around the world. 'Lover' is clearly her most acclaimed album to date. Her honesty and vulnerability poured into this album has created a masterpiece."
Lover is Taylor Swift's first album available to stream on platforms during its release week. On Spotify alone, Lover has been streamed 600 million-plus times. In addition, music videos for "ME!" and MTV's VMA Video of the Year, "You Need To Calm Down," are nearing half-a-billion views on YouTube.
Taylor Swift has risen to No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Songwriters chart with a trio of songwriting entries on the latest weekly Hot 100 survey including, "You Need to Calm Down," "Lover," and "ME!," featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco.
Lover is the ten-time GRAMMY® Award-winning, record-breaking superstar's seventh album. Taylor Swift's juggernaut arrives as a fan favorite and currently ranks as Taylor's highest rated critically acclaimed album on Metacritic.
Here is what the critics are saying about Lover:
"Lover is a career-topping masterpiece" - Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone
"The superstar's writing is better than it's ever been on her latest album" - Brittany Spanos, Rolling Stone
"Lover—the first album with music she owns outright, thanks to a new major-label deal—finds Swift in a confident headspace, secure in the knowledge she has no need to prove herself to anybody. This freedom also means Lover is one of her strongest, most relatable albums to date." -
Annie Zaleski, A.V. Club
"Her epic seventh album is all about big moods, dreamy Eighties throwbacks and evolutionary freedom" - Nick Catucci, Rolling Stone
"The old Taylor is back on Lover and the best she's been in years" -
Craig Jenkins, Vulture
"Taylor Swift's 'Lover' Is A Masterful, Heartfelt Pop Spectacle" - Bryan Rolli, Forbes
"Lover is Swift's most mature album and her most fun one, all at once" - Chris Willman, Variety
"Lover offers plenty of evidence that Swift is just a better songwriter than any of her competitors in the upper echelons of pop" - Alexis Petridis, Guardian
"Taylor Swift's Lover Could Hold the Key to Pop Music's Survival" - Erin Vanderhoof, Vanity Fair
"She's one of the best pop lyricists our era has produced" - Erin Vanderhoof, Vanity Fair
"Critics are falling in love with Taylor Swift's latest album Lover" - Sara M Moniuszko, USA Today
"Lover is a return to vulnerability and romance" - Quinn Moreland, Pitchfork
"Taylor Swift's 'Lover' is grown-up, complex pop" - Mikael Wood, LA Times
"Swift's vocals are also in peak form throughout, with varied timbres and layers of harmony and spontaneous sounding interjections that constantly catch me by surprise" - Carl Wilson, Slate
"Taylor Swift Emerges From the
Darkness Unbroken on 'Lover"' - Jon Carmanica, The New York Times
"Lover proves that
Taylor Swift has nothing to prove" - Shaad D'Souza, The Fader
"On Taylor Swift's new album, the megastar pop phenom is more comfortable—and experimental—than ever" - Shaad D'Souza, The Fader
"Taylor Swift's triumphant new album Lover" - Dan Wooten, The Sun
"Lover is an album of revelation through pain that sees Swift pushing herself in surprising ways...some of the most intriguing lyrics of her career" - Spencer Kornharber, The Atlantic
"It is a towering work that's worth both close analysis on headphones and scream-alongs on stadium speakers" - Jason Lipshutz, Billboard
"It is reminiscent of Swift's 2014 album, 1989, but slicker and sleeker. Her voice has never sounded better" - Neil McCormick, The Telegraph
"Lover is an example of what Swift does best: classic songwriting on everyday themes" - Will Hodgkinson, The Times
"Full of love, loss and realisation, Swift's seventh record is packed with powerful moments." - Andrew Trendell, NME
"Lover has the jams to skip around your house to as well as the songs for you to cry alone in your bedroom to, and, if you're lucky enough, to enjoy with your lover" - Alex Kazemi, V mag
"On Lover, Swift proves she is, still, a fearless lover; an imaginative lyricist, one of the world's most exciting popstars and a young woman with extraordinary power, still assessing how much of herself she is safe to reveal" -
Sarah Carson, The i
"It is a paean to love in all its forms: romantic, sexual, unbearable; lost, future, imagined; self-love, parental love, same-sex love. It meditates peacefully on acceptance, of others, of one's past, and of what one can't control" -
Sarah Carson, The i
"Taylor Swift, you see, can still write the shit out of a song" - Tom Breihan, Stereogum
"Lover is pure Taylor Swift, at her most content and confident" - Larry Fitzmaurice, Entertainment Weekly
"This is a self-assured album from an artist who is more confident in her abilities than ever before - and frankly, it's a pleasure to hear" - Kate Leaver, Glamour
"Taylor Swift's Diary Entries Are a Must-Read Companion to 'Lover'" - The New York Times
"The superb new 18-track collection finds Swift looking backward and forward through the lens of love" - Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
"The American singer proves once more that she is one of her generation's definitive pop stars" - Ludovic Hunter-Tilney - Financial Times
