News broke Tuesday evening that Taylor Swift’s “1989” moved a whopping 1.287 million copies in its first week of release.
A career high for Swift, the total is her third straight opening mark in excess of one million. No act had previously crossed the million mark more than twice.
Cause for celebration in any circumstance, the total is rendered more sweet by the fact that it so greatly exceeds initial industry forecasts. Many analysts were eyeing a bow in the 700,000-1,000,000 range, and some publications, including Billboard, were actually focused on the lower end of that range.
Noting the fact that her new album outperformed, Swift issued a celebratory–and appreciative–Instagram Tuesday night.
“Industry experts predicted 1989 would sell 650k first week,” wrote Swift. “You went and bought 1.287 million albums.”
Noting that the overperformance “got me like…,” Swift included a video in which she lip-syncs to Kendrick Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle.”
