Last month, Taylor Swift kept fans up with her 12 a.m. debut of “Midnights,” her 10th and latest album. Three hours later, the pop star — who has a penchant for surprising fans — dropped seven extra tracks in a deluxe version aptly titled “Midnights (3am Edition).”
The sleepless night — mirroring the ones she croons about on the record — paid off. “Midnights” turned Swift into the first artist to snag every one of the top 10 slots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, all with songs from the 13-song album.
It is a previously unheard-of, tremendous achievement for any artist, experts told The Washington Post. Amid the music industry’s changing ecosystem in the age of streaming, the feat could only be pulled off by someone who brings to the table exactly what Swift does: an established stardom, a loyal fan base, a savvy social media strategy and a relentless marketing machine.
“This was just a really good album, and she’s one of the most gigantic music stars in the world,” said Steve Knopper, Billboard editor at large. “She also flooded the zone with different versions of the album and pushed it all out there in a week where there wasn’t a ton of competition from other artists. With that combination of things, you can’t go wrong.”
Following the Oct. 21 to Oct. 27 tracking week, the “Midnights” album now has the most-ever top 10 songs on the list — a record previously held by Drake’s 2021 album “Certified Lover Boy,” which had nine hits in the top 10.
“Anti-Hero,” a song about Swift’s inner battles, topped the list with some 59.7 million streams and 32 million radio airplay impressions. It was followed by “Lavender Haze,” a breezy song about love’s all-encompassing glow, with 41.4 million streams, and “Maroon,” a track revisiting a fizzled-out relationship, with 37.6 million.
To formulate the charts, Billboard takes into account a slew of metrics that each carry varying weights. Those metrics include digital and physical sales, streams, and radio airplay impressions. But the criteria have changed over the years — especially in the past decade, as streaming has become more of a revenue generator.a