On Friday, Taylor Swift drops her new album, “Lover.” My friends over at hitsdailydouble are hoping it will sell a million copies in its first week. All of her previously albums have sold a million in their debut weeks. No pressure at all!
But so far, Taylor’s sales for the first singles from the album aren’t so swift. And her streaming numbers are terrible.
On Apple Music today, Taylor’s newest single, which I like so much, “Lover,” is not number 1 or in the top 120 or 20. It’s an alarming number 33.
On Spotify, “Lover” has had a very poor 13.8 million streams. That sounds like a lot but isn’t. The single that came right before it, “The Archer,” has streamed 34.3 million times. That’s also not a lot.
The two hits from this new album were “Me!” with Brandon Urie, and “You Have to Calm Down.” They actually did get a lot of streaming–239 million and 159 million respectively, although frankly, the first one–“Me!”– is the success. In sales, “Me!” has sold 1.4 million copies — mostly streaming, with 400K in downloads.
Streaming has not been Taylor’s strong suit so far. But streaming is now much more important than downloads. According to Buzz Angle, since its release last week “Lover” sold only 25,000 copies. Including streaming, the sales total is 80,000.
The “Lover” album will have 14 songs we haven’t heard, plus the 4 singles already released. So there’s plenty of room for more hits that will drive sales of the album. But so far, prognosticators need to calm down. “Lover” may not smash records on day 1.
