Taylor Swift was the queen of vinyl albums in 2022, as the superstar sold more vinyl LPs in the U.S. than any other act by far last year: 1.695 million across her entire catalog of releases, according to the U.S. 2022 Luminate Year-End Music Report.
In fact, she sold more vinyl LPs last year than the next two biggest-sellers on vinyl combined: Styles with 719,000 and The Beatles with 553,000.
Swift loomed so large on vinyl in 2022, nearly one of every 25 vinyl LPs sold last year in the U.S. was a Swift album (1.695 million of 43.46 million total vinyl albums sold by all artists).
Swift’s latest release, Midnights, was the top-selling vinyl album of 2022 in the U.S., with 945,000 copies sold across all of its vinyl variants and editions. The album has the largest yearly sales total for a vinyl album since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991. Midnights also posted the single-largest sales week for a vinyl LP in Luminate history, when it launched with 575,000 copies in its first week.
Swift has six of the year’s top 40-selling vinyl albums – Midnights (No. 1; 945,000), Folklore (No. 7; 174,000), Red (Taylor’s Version) (No. 11; 153,000), Evermore (No. 14; 134,000), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (No. 30; 97,000) and Lover (No. 36; 91,000). Harry Styles and Kendrick Lamar have the second-most titles among the year’s top 40-selling vinyl LPs, with three each.
Midnights, and Swift’s popular catalog, helped U.S. vinyl album sales grow for a 17th consecutive year in 2022. It was also the second year in a row, and only the second year since Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991, where vinyl albums outsold CD albums. Vinyl continues to be the leading format for album purchases for the second straight year.
Swift’s vinyl album sales, like many acts, benefit from the availability of a range of alternative versions and color-vinyl variants for her vinyl releases.
Midnights, for example, was available in four standard vinyl LP editions, each with a different cover and colored vinyl (dubbed Moonstone Blue Edition, Jade Green Edition, Mahogany Edition and Blood Moon Edition). Target stores also carried an exclusive colored-vinyl Lavender Edition. To further enhance sales, Swift’s official web store sold signed copies of the four standard vinyl LPs during a pre-order window before the album launched. As previously reported when the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, some superfans may have been motivated to purchase all four vinyl variants, as the back covers of the albums fit together like a puzzle to display a clock face (a literal reference to Midnights). Swift shared the news through her social media in mid-September, saying: “If you put all the back covers together, she’s a clock. It’s a clock… It makes a clock.” (Swift’s official web store previously sold hardware to hold the four CDs or the four vinyl LPs together as a wall clock.)
Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991 when the company was known as SoundScan. Luminate’s sales, streaming and airplay data is used to compile Billboard’s weekly charts. Luminate’s 2022 tracking year ran from Dec. 31, 2021, through Dec. 29, 2022. Luminate is an independently operated company owned by PME TopCo, a PMC subsidiary and joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge. Billboard is an independently operated company owned by PME Holdings, a subsidiary of PME TopCo.
