Music and history: The Taylor Swift Midnight story

Source: Entertainment Weekly

Now before we dive in deep and sing ballads for Taylor Swift, I feel there is one particular stat we really need to look over. RIAA reported that vinyl sales in the country rose by 22% only in the first half of 2022 and the report was on-point. I say that because, well almost half the number accumulated by Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” was through vinyl sales. 

There is no doubt “Midnights” completely slayed in physical copy sales but what about the streaming services? “Midnights” has left its mark all over with more than 284 million on-demand streams in the first weekend. Now that is an outstanding number. “Midnights” caught everyone’s attention, even Billboard specified many benchmarks the album had already set and it is just the beginning. For now, we can only speculate how many accolades the album will achieve and what records it will break shortly.

Source: TODAY

But the question remains does Taylor Swift owe all her success to vinyl album sales. Everything does point toward that direction itself. Billboard backed it up when they announced it was the biggest week for a vinyl album sale ever since they started tracking sales back in 1991. And all thanks go to Taylor Swift and her album “Midnights”. If I was Taylor Swift I would only imagine the past albums like “Folklore” or “Evermore”. What do these albums have in common you ask? Both of these albums were rushed to release and fans who wanted a vinyl copy had to wait months before getting their hands on a physical copy after the digital release. One thinks, if the albums were released with physical releases how many copies would they have pushed?

But “Midnights” was released with physical copies both in brick-and-mortar stores and online stores. “Midnights” did not just have a release, it had something for the collectors as well. The LP was released in five different editions. Four of the variants had different cover art and one Target edition. The CD edition also hit the shelves with different interior artwork and covers. Now that led to many collectors and a lot of Taylor Swift fans buying multiple copies to complete their set. 

Some of you might be thinking releasing an album masked as a collectible might be the reason behind the huge sales number she had. Just because she had a great marketing campaign doesn’t mean the album was not awesome. If you don’t believe me you can check out the streaming numbers which attest to how cool the album was. Even since its release, I am only listening to this album, everywhere all the time.

So have you gotten your hands on your copy of Taylor Swift’s “Midnight” comment down below?