Taylor Swift’s ‘Speak Now’ Sells One Million Copies in First Week

Speak Now’ is the first album since Lil Wayne’s ‘Tha Carter III’ to push one million units in one week on the charts
In the weeks leading up to its release, tracks from Taylor Swift’s third studio album, Speak Now, were released on the Internet. With songs rumored to be dedicated to such high-profile celebrities as Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, and Kanye West, Speak Now was met with a great deal of fanfare and media attention.
It turns out that all the publicity has paid off in spades. Hits Daily Double reports that Speak Now is a “lock” to sell more than a million copies in its first week. The album is also expected to establish a new record for percentage of total sales in a single week.
Industry experts are projecting that Speak Now’s total sales will lie between 17-18%, which would best the previous record set by NSYNC’s No Strings Attached when it pushed 2.4 million units for 15.3% of total sales in March 2000.
If the projections prove to be accurate, Swift’s Speak Now will become the first release to sell a million albums in its first week since Lil Wayne’s sixth studio album, Tha Carter III, debuted in June 2008.
Garth Brooks’ tenth album, Double Live, was the last country release to sell more than a million albums in a single week when it debuted in November 1998.
When taking the current state of the music industry into consideration, Swift’s accomplishment becomes even more staggering.