Taylor Swift Reigns Over Charts
Taylor Swift says she's been receiving one comment about her new CD she didn't expect. The teen country-pop singer says people who compare her self-titled debut and "Fearless" are telling her she sounds older on the new disc. Swift says any difference between the discs is just a natural progression.
Swift's seeing growth not just in her voice and music, but also in her sales. Her self-titled 2006 debut made its chart entry at number 19 with first-week sales of 39-thousand, but "Fearless" is hitting the all-genre Billboard 200 chart at number one with more than 592-thousand copies sold in its first week. That's the best sales week for a country album this year. It's also the best first-week sales figures in 2008 for a female artist of any musical genre, and the highest sales tally for a female country star since 2002. That year the Dixie Chicks issued "Home" in August, with first-week sales of 780-thousand. A few months later Shania Twain topped the Chicks with "Up," which moved 874-thousand copies in its first week out.
But Swift is also logging other chart accomplishments. Six songs from "Fearless" are set to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 Thursday, leading with the single "White Horse" in the number 13 spot. That ties Swift with Miley Cyrus' Hannah Montana for having the most tracks on the chart in a single week by a female artist. It's also the biggest digital country debut, with sales of 129-thousand. Further, Swift has topped the 120-million mark in MySpace streams -- with 20-million of those in the past eleven days. |