Taylor Swift's Lover debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart on Sept. 7, 2019 hitting numbers not seen since her reputation album broke records in 2017.
According to the magazine, Lover sold over 679,000 albums in its first week of release in part because the savvy singer made available four collectible deluxe CD editions at Target, as well as a variety of merchandise/digital album bundles on her popular website.
The sales and marketing paid off as Taylor became the only woman with six albums to sell a half million copies in a single week.
The only man to have done it? Mr. Marshall Mathers.
It was her sixth consecutive #1 album and her fifth #1 in that decade.
One way she was able to build up excitement for the album release was the drip drip drip of singles though 2019 leading to the late-August album drop. The first single they chose was the ultra-poppy self-affirming "ME!" featuring Brendon Urie from Panic! at the Disco.
Taylor promoted the album and singles by performing on talk shows, Germany's Next Topmodel, and even the Amazon Prime Day Concert.
"ME!" debuted at #100 on the singles chart and the very next week flew to #2, which set a record. Speaking of... the single also became the most on-demand voice requests for Alexa of a new song.
Amazon might have been Taylor's secret weapon as it was at the Prime Day concert that she live debuted the second single off Lover, "You Need To Calm Down."
Then, a week before the release of the album, Taylor threw and amazing curveball: a video where her lover isn't what we'd ever seen in her previous videos.
In "ME!" Swift sung about inclusiveness, in "Lover" she showed it as she and her Black boyfriend literally play house in a very colorful home with twinkle lights, a pink bed, a drum set, and confetti.
Was it controversial?
Only to those willing to out themselves of having a problem with it.
In hindsight it was perfect as it kept her in the news cycle days before the album release.
Also dropping the title track as lush and romantic and sweeping as this one right before the LP(s) are made available was genius. The word was literally in the mouths of the media, the social channels, the DMs and YouTube.
And then on August 23 it was what hundreds of thousands of people were clicking, asking for, and streaming.
Due to coronavirus, there was no Lover Tour. That's why the Eras Tour begins with songs from that album.
Before Taylor heads across the pond for the international dates for the tour in November, the concert movie of the Eras Tour will hit North American theaters October 13.
It will be screening at AMC, Regal, and Cinemark cinemas. Tickets available here.
