21 Apr 2024

Taylor Swift: The Tortured Poets Department broke Spotify record

2:18 pm on 21 April 2024

By Noor Nanji, BBC Culture reporter

Taylor Swift wears a Roberto Cavalli outfit while performing "You're Losing Me" at the MCG 16 February, 2024. (Photo by Graham Denholm/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)

Taylor Swift has been breaking records and collecting awards from the music industry, with massive sales figures for her albums Photo: Graham Denholm/TAS24

Taylor Swift's new album The Tortured Poets Department has broken the record for Spotify's most-streamed in a single day, the platform said.

The pop sensation also became the most-streamed artist in a single day.

Her hotly anticipated album was released on Friday, sending Swifties around the world into a frenzy.

It contains 31 tracks in which the megastar lays bare her heartbreak and appears to direct anger at former partners.

The first 16 tracks dropped as scheduled at 5am UK time, but just a few hours later, an additional 15 tracks were released, giving her fans plenty to dive into - as well as sending music journalists into a tailspin.

Swift said the album was an anthology of new works reflecting "events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure".

She went on to declare that period in her life "now over".

"The chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed," she said. "Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it."

Swift announced the arrival of her 11th studio album live on stage at the Grammy Awards in February.

It contains tracks including 'So Long, London', which is widely thought to be about her ex-partner, British actor Joe Alwyn. Swift, who was with Alwyn for six years, had previously moved to London where he was living.

Another track, 'But Daddy I Love Him', is also thought to address the discourse that surrounded Swift's reported-but-never-confirmed romance with The 1975's lead singer Matty Healy, last year.

The record follows the hugely successful Midnights, which sold 1.6 million copies in its first week in the US, two years ago.

It featured the singles 'Anti-Hero', 'Bejeweled' and 'Karma', and went on to win album of the year at the Grammys - making Swift the first person to win the award four times.

US singer Taylor Swift performs on stage during a concert as part of her Eras World Tour in Sydney on February 23, 2024. (Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP)

Taylor Swift performing in Sydney in February, on her wildly successful Eras Tour Photo: AFP / David Gray

The arrival of a new album sent shockwaves through her loyal fanbase as it means there will be new material to add to the star's blockbuster Eras tour, which hits Europe this summer.

Swift revisits each of her previous 10 albums at the concerts, which already run for over three hours.

Her album comes hot on the heels of a busy year for the star, who was also declared a billionaire by Forbes magazine earlier this month.

- This story was first published by BBC

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