ENTERTAINMENT | Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ Opens At No.1 With The Largest Debut Of 2020

With another No.1 album to her credit, Taylor Swift has proved she can make it to the top of the charts with or without promotion. The singer-songwriter debuts her new surprise full-length Folklore atop last week’s Billbored 200 with a massive first-frame sum, one which almost no one else could hope to approach, even with a robust marketing campaign.

Folklore launches at No.1 on the Billboard 200 with 846,000 equivalent units shifted. That sum includes 615,000 purse sales and 218,000 streaming equivalents. That last figure is made up of nearly 290 million streams.

That 846,000 equivalent units sum is enough to grant Swift the largest debut of the year in the U.S., and it wasn’t a close competition. Just two weeks ago, late rapper Juice WORLD was awarded that honor, as his first posthumous full-length Legends Never Die opened with just under half a million equivalent copies.

Folklore is Swift’s seventh No.1 on the Billboard 200, as almost all of her full-lengths have spent at least one frame in the penthouse. The pop star has reached the summit with the following seven titles: Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), Lover (2019) and now Folklore. In addition to her seven leaders, she has also broken into Top 10 with two other projects – her debut album  Taylor Swift (2006) and one EP, Beautiful Eyes (2008).

The 10-time Grammy winner didn’t promote Folklore with any singles, as no part of the collection was made available before the set dropped in full.

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