HOUSTON, TEXAS – APRIL 21: FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. Taylor Swift performs onstage during the Taylor … [+]
Taylor Swift has a new album out…sort of…and it might become one of the only releases to break the top 10 on the Billboard 200 based on vinyl sales alone in decades.
Swift’s new offering Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is a recording of the live renditions of the songs featured on her surprise album Folklore. This new drop features audio recordings of Swift and her collaborators Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon performing the tunes on the full-length for her documentary of the same name, which was released on Disney+.
Despite the music being available in the visual format, Swift decided not to release the audio in full, until Record Store Day 2023. Now, the album is available to purchase on gray vinyl in support of record stores. However, there might not be enough copies to go around as Swift only pressed 115,000 copies, with only 75,000 of those allocated to stores in the U.S.
Vinyl has returned as a popular format for many collectors, with Swift leading the way. Her album Midnights arrived in October 2022 and sold a whopping 575,000 copies on wax in just its first week, easily resetting the previous record, which was many multiples smaller.
If Swift can sell all 75,000 copies available in the U.S. this week, it will surely send Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions to the top 10 on the Billboard 200 next frame. Even if not all 75,000 vinyl albums are found and purchased at once, Swift may still break the top 10, giving the star her fourteenth placement in the region.
For reference, this week, the No. 3 top-consumed album in America, SZA’s SOS, moved 66,000 equivalent units—and that includes all forms of consumption, as the Billboard 200 takes into account not just purchases, but also individual track sales and streams. The top two titles on this week’s Billboard 200 both passed 100,000 units.
If a singer can shift under 70,000 units and reach No. 3 on the Billboard 200, it is possible that the immense popularity of Swift, paired with the relative rarity of Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, could make it a chart win in the next few days if it sells a large chunk of those 75,000 vinyl albums.
If Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions does launch inside the top 10 on next week’s Billboard 200, it will do so thanks entirely to sales on vinyl—something that hasn’t been seen since the heyday of the format, which took place decades ago.
Record Store Day is an annual event held twice a year, once in the spring and again on Black Friday. Many major musicians take part, sharing special releases that are only available in record stores in an attempt to help these businesses stay alive and thrive. In an era when sales moved online and were then decimated by track purchases and streaming platforms, Record Store Day is seen as a necessity, and one that many stars are eager to get behind.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/04/25/will-taylor-swifts-folklore-the-long-pond-sessions-hit-the-top-10-based-on-vinyl-sales-alone/