Christopher Polk for PMC
Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now (Taylor Version)” isn’t just a one-day stream wonder. Yes, it got the highest single-day numbers for Spotify this year when it came out on a Friday. But as of Monday evening, less than 96 hours after her new album was released, Swift has taken over 23 of the top 50 spots on Spotify’s US Top 50 as she continues to dominate the streaming world. Also “Cruel Summer” Resurrection.
Her supremacy at the international level is just as complete. On Spotify’s Global Top 50 at the same time Monday night, Swift was represented by 17 songs, occupying a third of that chart’s 50 spots.
The remake of “Speak Now” is obviously driving most of the action, but one of the curiosities of this particular Swiftian summer is the arrival of 2019’s “Cruel Summer,” which is currently the singer’s top track on the global chart, no. 3, just ahead of No. 4 from the new album “I can see you (From the Vault)”.
Republic is promoting the single from the “Lover” album to radio as a song of the summer candidate, and it’s working — “Cruel Summer” jumped into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, starting Monday, at no. 7, with 30.3 million airplay audience views and just shy of 15 million streams. That gives Swift two songs currently in Billboard’s top 10, along with the remix of “Karma” (by Ice Spice), from her “Midnights” album, which is still hanging at No. 9. It’s not impossible on the next Hot 100. Out in one week, “I Can See You (from Vault)” could join the other two and Swift’s feat of having three songs from three different albums in the top 10.
But we’re not getting ahead of ourselves yet. What Swift is doing on the Spotify chart right now is amazing, especially when a new album is out for a few days and the initial fan hysteria has died down.
On the US Spotify chart, less than four days after the new album debuted, Swift’s top song is currently “I Can See You (From the Vault),” following Olivia Rodrigo’s No. 1 hit “Vampire.” Although she didn’t release an attention-grabbing music video on Friday night, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” the song about her long-ago reunion with ex-boyfriend Taylor, may have been the most popular of the six Vault tracks. Lautner and Now Grown stars in her 2010 “Mean” music video.
Swift has six songs in the Spotify US top 10, with “I Can Take You” followed by “Taylor’s version” of “Back to December”, “Mine”, “Captured” and “Sparks Fly” at Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 10, and “The Lovers” “Cruel Summer” in verse 8.
On top of that, her songs reached 18 out of 25, followed by “IU Can See You” and her second most popular vault track is “Castles Crumbling” which came in at number 11 with Paramore’s Hayley Williams. His new version of “Better Than Revenge” at No. 12 includes polarizing updated lyrics.
Spotify hasn’t released many Swift-related statistics other than to note that the new album had the biggest single streaming day of 2023 on Friday and set a one-day streaming record for a country album. (Probably too many fans don’t think of “Speak Now” — the old version or the re-recorded version — as country, given its rise to dominance well into 2010, but that’s how it’s classified, not as pop, but for Spotify and many other chart purposes. ).
But several fan-driven accounts keep a close eye on Swift’s Spotify hits and compile their own charts comparing the artist’s current success to others — and to herself.
Independent Twitter account Taylor Swift Charts (@chartswift) points out that “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” set the second-best Spotify numbers for a female artist in a single day with 126.4 million streams — a number only previously held. It’s bested by Swift herself, when “Midnights” amassed a record-breaking 184.7 million streams on its first day last fall.
According to this chart, on Spotify’s list of the 20 best single dates in female artists’ history, Swift has 18 of those 20 spots, with only two Ariana Grande albums with blockbuster debuts keeping her from the clean sheet. Sweep (Spotify reps said they couldn’t confirm this ranking, but Taylor Swift has a pretty good track record in charting.)
With several days left in its weekly chart cycle, the Hits Daily double “Speak Now (Taylor Version)” is projecting between 650,000 and 700,000 units for its debut, making it the best album debut of 2023 so far — eclipsing even the 501,000-unit mark. First week for Morgan Wallen in the blockbuster “One Thing at a Time.”
If that 650k+ estimate pans out, it’ll be nothing compared to Swift’s new album, “Midnights,” which debuted last October with over 1.1 million units. But it will be the biggest debut of her three remakes to date. “Red (Taylor Version)” came out of the gate with 605,000 units in late 2021, and “Fearless (Taylor Version)” debuted earlier that year with 291,000.
In the UK, Swift is expected to have three songs from two albums in the top 10 of the Official Singles Chart, according to midweek estimates. “Mine (Taylor Version)” is reportedly on track to slip into the week’s top new entry at No. 4, followed by “Better Than Revenge (Taylor Version)” at No. 7. “Lovely” single “Cruel Summer” is on track to peak at number 8 in the UK.
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