Based on opening day sales data, Billboard forecasts that Taylor Swift will become the first female artist in the Nielsen SoundScan era to achieve more than a million opening-week sales for two albums.
After edging the million mark for 2010’s “Speak Now,” Swift is pacing to again accomplish the feat for new release “Red,” which has dominated every conceivable chart since launching Monday.
Only the Backstreet Boys, *N Sync and Eminem have previously scored million-plus sales weeks for pairs of albums.
The Billboard report says that Swift moved more than 500,000 copies of her album on debut Monday; a whopping 160,000 of those sales came from Target, which again partnered with the singer on a deluxe album release.
In addition to moving hundreds of thousands of full album copies and downloads, Big Machine’s flagship artist has seen an explosive response to her individual tracks. Every individual track has charted on iTunes, and according to Hits Daily Double, more than 4.5 individual songs have been purchased from the smash hit record.
