Taylor Swift breaks Adele record as ‘Showgirl’ hits 3.5M units in U.S.
Taylor Swift has officially broken another Adele record. Her latest album The Life of a Showgirl, released on 3 October 2025, has already generated 3.5 million equivalent album units in the United States, according to initial figures from Luminate. Of that total, 3.2 million are traditional album sales across physical and digital formats, while the remaining 300,000 are powered by streaming.
This staggering performance means The Life of a Showgirl has set a new record for the largest week by equivalent album units since the Billboard 200 began ranking albums under the multi-metric system in 2014. The previous mark was held by Adele’s 25, which logged 3.482 million units upon its debut in December 2015.
On pure sales, Swift’s album is also closing in on Adele’s modern-era milestone of 3.378 million first-week sales for 25, achieved a decade ago. With 3.2 million already sold in just under a week, industry watchers expect Swift to challenge or even surpass that benchmark when Billboard finalises its weekly tallies on 12 October.
Swift’s sales have been bolstered by an avalanche of physical editions. Beyond standard CD, vinyl, cassette and digital formats, she has offered exclusive webstore variants, deluxe box sets, limited signed copies and alternate artwork editions. Four surprise CD variants with unique bonus tracks launched midweek, fuelling a further boost. Her official store also restocked a deluxe boxed set that includes a branded cardigan and CD.
Streaming figures are strong as well. Within its first two days, the album’s 12 tracks generated more than 300 million on-demand official streams in the US. The standout so far is The Fate of Ophelia, which racked up over 48 million streams by 5 October following the release of its music video on YouTube.
If The Life of a Showgirl secures No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Swift will achieve her 15th chart-topping album, moving past Drake and JAY-Z for the most among solo acts, and placing her just behind The Beatles’ 19.
As of 9 October 2025, Swift’s dominance looks certain to cement Showgirl not only as the year’s biggest album, but as one of the defining commercial releases of the streaming era.