Pop: They don’t have to, they want

A tiny, very petty quibble to start with. I promise, it doesn't diminish the entire madness surrounding the artist Taylor Swift , but when this madness is escalating to entirely new dimensions, perhaps it's all the more worthwhile to be precise. And strictly speaking, the singer and songwriter hasn't sold 4,002,000 (in words: four million two thousand) albums, as widely reported. She's only sold the equivalent. Poor thing.

The equivalent, as chart magazine Billboard explains, also takes into account what happens on streaming platforms (which is a lot). These streams are converted into virtual albums using a form of modern chart arithmetic, for which you can must be able to do more than addition and subtraction. Therefore, they won't be explained in detail here. But the actual album sales of "The Life of a Showgirl"—the CDs, the cassettes, the vinyl records, and the purchased downloads—are so astronomical that only a James Bond villain could have thought them up.

Swift has sold 3,479,500 (in words: three million, four hundred and seventy-nine thousand, five hundred) albums. Mind you, in the first week since its release. Even more importantly, in the US alone, where these figures are compiled more promptly and, above all, more meticulously than in Germany, for example. But since Swift also tops the vinyl charts in Germany, the album charts as well, and has eight songs in the top ten singles, the album has probably been well-received here as well.

Which, of course, isn't particularly surprising at first. However, the figures just announced are, to put it mildly, completely disastrous.

To put it in perspective: Since the data company Luminate began tracking sales (and later downloads and then streams) for the Billboard charts in the US in 1991, no album has been purchased more often in its first week than "The Life of a Showgirl." None. Worldwide, where the data is somewhat less transparent, only Michael Jackson's "Bad" ranks higher than Swift.

What's even more astonishing is that for many years of this survey, there were no streaming services. Well into the 2000s, anyone who wanted to hear an album had to buy it (or, for a while, steal it from Napster). The fact that people are still willing to go to this expense, including the financial expense, speaks once again to the bond fans have developed with Swift. They don't have to. They want to.

And a second factor is fascinating: Equivalent sales, which also include streams, usually include single downloads, using an equally complex formula. However, Swift isn't yet offering individual songs for download in the US. Only the entire new album. Which is also a welcome relief against the general cultural pessimism: The world's most successful artist to date isn't just selling a lot of albums. She also seems to like the format.