Last week, Taylor Swift released the highly-anticipated rerecorded version of her smash hit album ‘Fearless’. The new version, dubbed ‘Taylor’s Version’, featured six new songs, including a duet with Keith Urban, as well as the previous material rerecorded so that Taylor officially owns her own music. Now, the project has made history as it tops both the charts in the US and UK.
Notably, Taylor is now the first woman with three new No. 1 albums in less than a year. Moving over 1 million units worldwide, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) logged the “biggest first week debut of any album this year,” “the biggest first week debut for a country album since 2015” and “the biggest female country streaming week ever.” Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is the only No. 1 album of its kind: a re-recording of an artist’s (own or another’s) previously released album.
Generating 50 million-plus streams on release day, it also achieved “the biggest first day streaming debut for any album on Spotify this year” and marked her fourth consecutive album to exceed 50 million Spotify streams in 24 hours. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) also becomes the first country album by a female artist to reach #1 on Apple Music’s US Albums chart.
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) stands out as Taylor’s 4th #1 album in less than two years with the “3 biggest debuts since July2020” with folklore, evermore, and Fearless (Taylor’s Version). It also emerges as “the biggest female country album debut since the inception of the Billboard Top 200 album-based conception charts in 2014.” Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is the eleven-time GRAMMY® Award-winning, record-breaking superstar’s 9th #1 Album.
‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’ became her 3rd album to chart #1 during its debut week in less than a year in the UK. The Beatles had previously accomplished this incredible feat the fastest in 364 days, but Taylor eclipsed the speed of The Fab Four as she reached this benchmark and accumulated three #1’s in just 259 days—a difference of 105 days.
Not only did it become her 7th #1 in the country, but Taylor became “the first and only solo artist ever to claim three UK #1 albums in less than 12 months during the 21st century” and “the first ever international artist and first ever female artist to land three #1 albums in the UK within one year in history.”
Physical sales of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) outsold the remaining combined total physical sales of the UK Top 15. The permanent downloads also bested the remaining combined total permanent downloads of the Top 70. She shattered her own record for the second time in the last year as “the first and only female artist to garner 7 #1 studio albums in the UK this century.” Additionally, she has gathered “the 3rd Most #1 albums in the UK by a female artist.”
‘Fearless’ famously scored Taylor six Grammy nominations and won Album of the Year at the 2009 Grammy Awards. Taylor says she plans to rerecord her first five albums and it is still unclear if she will rerecord 2017’s ‘Reputation’ which also fall part of the catalogue purchased by Scooter.
Listen to the rerecorded replica here:
