MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – DECEMBER 10: Taylor Swift performs during her ‘1989’ World Tour at AAMI Park … [+]
The final quarter of each year typically sees the release of highly anticipated albums from some of the music industry’s biggest stars. As holiday shoppers contribute to inflated sales figures, many top artists choose to drop their albums in the fall and early winter. While several major musicians have announced their upcoming releases for the latter months of 2023, it’s highly unlikely that any of these projects will compete with the impact of Taylor Swift’s forthcoming album.
Set to be released on October 27, Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is poised to dominate the last months of 2023. The re-recorded edition of her pure pop masterpiece 1989 has been teased and anticipated for years, and it’s bound to be not only one of the biggest drops of the year, but perhaps the last several.
The original album spawned seven singles, three of which claimed the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 chart. 1989 was an immediate and massive success upon its release, solidifying its status as one of the best-selling and most significant albums of the past decade. Given this legacy, there’s strong reason to anticipate similar success for its reimagined version.
In the upcoming month of September, multiple major album releases are already planned. Olivia Rodrigo is likely to secure another instant No. 1 with her sophomore album Guts. She’ll be in competition with V, a member of BTS, who is dropping his debut solo project Layover on the same day. Additionally, Ed Sheeran’s Autumn Variations is set to arrive later in the month, marking his second album release of 2023.
While the month of October might appear relatively quiet in terms of major No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart—aside from 1989 (Taylor’s Version), of course—November is expected to bring more high-profile activity. On November 10, Chris Stapleton will release his comeback album Higher. The country star has consistently earned significant chart debuts, and this latest project is likely to follow suit by topping the Billboard 200.
The following week, Nicki Minaj’s highly-anticipated album Pink Friday 2 is slated to drop. After a five-year hiatus since her last full-length release, Minaj’s return is expected to be huge, as she remains an incredibly prominent figure in the music industry. It’s quite likely that Pink Friday 2 will debut at No. 1 with a substantial first-week performance, potentially reaching hundreds of thousands of units.
Swift’s re-recorded albums have consistently debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart with increasingly impressive figures. Her most recent release, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), entered with 716,000 equivalent units sold in its opening week, and anticipation for 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is expected to be even greater.
The pop-oriented sound of the album appeals to a broader audience, and the original title featured hits that are both memorable and already returning to several Billboard charts. The album is almost certain to launch with at least half a million equivalent units, and it will likely begin with somewhere between that sum and perhaps even the coveted one million copies—a feat that very few artists can achieve in today’s music landscape.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/08/27/taylor-swifts-1989-taylors-version-is-the-biggest-album-coming-in-the-rest-of-2023/