Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department debuted on the Billboard charts one year ago this week — and what a debut it was. The full-length arrived with record-breaking numbers across virtually every metric the company tracks, from pure sales to streaming totals to total vinyl dominance. Now, 52 weeks later, the set is still found on two tallies: the Billboard 200, where it sits at No. 16, and the Top Streaming Albums chart, where it lifts slightly and settles at No. 13, after previously conquering both rosters.

In honor of its one-year anniversary on the Billboard rankings, here’s a look back at The Tortured Poets Department’s blockbuster first week — one that helped redefine what a commercial music launch could look like in the modern era.

A Monumental Debut

In its first frame, The Tortured Poets Department opened with 2.61 million equivalent album units in America alone. That stands out as the second-largest debut in the history of the Billboard 200. The only album to ever start with a more impressive sum was Adele’s 25, which bowed with 3.48 million back in 2015.

That massive figure includes all forms of consumption — sales, streams, and track equivalents (fans buying some songs from the project, but not all of them, which are compiled together to create album “units”). In an era when album launches rarely top 500,000 units, Swift’s opening sum was nearly unheard of.

Traditional Album Sales Record

Out of that 2.61 million total, a staggering 1.914 million were pure purchases, either digital or physical. That’s the third-largest sales week since Luminate began tracking purchases carefully and more directly in 1991. The Tortured Poets Department trails behind only 25 (2.433 million) and NSYNC’s No Strings Attached (2.4 million). For context, the majority of chart-topping albums today don’t even reach six figures in sales.

Taylor Swift Smashed the Vinyl Record (Again)

Of those traditional sales, 859,000 were vinyl copies. That number allowed Swift to break her own record for the biggest vinyl sales week in the modern era. That record previously belonged to 1989 (Taylor’s Version), which had moved 693,000 copies on wax just a few months prior. Swift holds most of the biggest vinyl sales weeks ever in America.

The Biggest Streaming Week of All Time

Beyond physical and digital sales, The Tortured Poets Department was also hugely successful on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. The project pulled in 891.34 million on-demand audio streams in its debut seven-day tracking week, breaking the all-time record for the largest U.S. streaming period for an album. The previous record-holder, Drake’s Scorpion, had opened with 745.92 million back in 2018. Shockingly, Swift beat that sum by more than 140 million streams. The title’s lengthy tracklist – the first edition featured 16 songs, while the Anthology version includes a total of 31 – surely played a role in its ability to shatter this record.