As expected, Taylor Swift’s eight studio album Folklore is ruling the chart for the second week straight.
The album released on July 24 and it didn’t take much time for it to apparate over to the top – the first-week debut observed a humongous addition of 852,700 album units followed by the second frame which added 139,700 units. Two weeks, combinedly, have brought the unit total around 1 million.
According to NewYork Times, Swift may be the last artist to exploit the flawed bundling rule of Billboard. The bundling guideline will be coming to an end in the month of October later this year. There has been severe criticism around the charting system followed by Billboard.
To tackle the challenge, Billboard has been on the lookout for a solution to the delay problems – a solution that strikes as the best at this point in time is to drop the flawed way and adopt a new charting system that can rank albums with more accuracy. In recent times, the charting of albums has become even more difficult due to frequent releases and weak supply.
Moving back to the subject, Swift’s Folklore is a surprise album that came about without any pre-release promotions. Written and recorded by the singer in isolation during the lockdown, Folklore has done more wonders than just topping the chart.
The studio album marks the biggest opening day on Spotify for a female artist, having received a Guinness World Record honor for the same. Upon its release, not only fans but also the critics were in the complete awe of the composition, incredible coherence, and poetic lyricism.
The album traveled to the top in a number of countries including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom, etc. The album consists of 16 tracks and interestingly, all of them have made their place in the Billboard Hot 100 with the song Cardigan leading the way at no. 1. Thanks to the hits, Swift is history's first act to debut on the top at both the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 in the same week.
It is truly remarkable how without any promotional-aid, Swift's studio album has garnered widespread attention and success in a jiffy. The music industry was, in a way, forgetting, the cool trend of taking fans by surprise. But Swift’s successful surprise album is sure to serve as an encouragement to other singers and musicians in the industry to consider a surprise release.
The aromatic atmosphere that Swift's singing sets owes its flavor to the uniqueness of the singer's creativity. Similarily, Folklore is no exception.