Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ becomes first million-selling album of 2020

Taylor Swift‘s ‘Folklore’ has become the first album of 2020 to sell a million copies in the US.

The album returned to the top of the Billboard chart this week, selling 57,000 copies and taking its total number sold to 1.038million.

• READ MORE: Taylor Swift – ‘Folklore’ review: pop superstar undergoes an extraordinary indie-folk makeover

The surge in sales was largely down to new signed CD versions of the quarantine-recorded album being sold on Swift’s online store over the last week.

‘Folklore’ becomes the ninth Taylor Swift album to reach a million sales, with her eight studio albums plus Christmas album ‘The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection’ also reaching the milestone.

It follows ‘Lover’, Swift’s seventh album from 2019, picking up the accolade of the only album of last year to sell a million copies.

In a four-star review of the album, NME described ‘Folklore’ as an “extraordinary indie-folk makeover,” writing: “Folklore’ feels fresh, forward-thinking and, most of all, honest. The glossy production she’s lent on for the past half-decade is cast aside for simpler, softer melodies and wistful instrumentation.

“It’s the sound of an artist who’s bored of calculated releases and wanted to try something different. Swift disappeared into the metaphorical woods while writing ‘Folklore’, and she’s emerged stronger than ever.”

Since the release of ‘Folklore’, which features Bon Iver‘s Justin Vernon and production from The National‘s Aaron Dessner, Swift has been breaking a number of chart records.

As of last month, she now holds the title for most cumulative weeks spent at Number One for a female artist on the Billboard 200.

Whitney Houston previously held the record, raising the bar back in 1987 with her second studio album, ‘Whitney’. Swift is preceded by The Beatles (132 weeks), Elvis Presley (67), Garth Brooks (52) and Michael Jackson (51), as male artists hold the highest number of non-consecutive weeks atop the charts.