Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone, blasts onto Billboard’s Adult Pop Airplay chart, dated May 4, at No. 9. The launch ties for the highest in the list’s 27-year history – matching the No. 9 arrival of Swift’s own “Shake It Off” in 2014.
The new track, the lead single from Swift’s album The Tortured Poets Department, becomes Swift’s record-extending 31st Adult Pop Airplay top 10, pushing her further ahead of Maroon 5, second with 27 top 10s. Post Malone notches his fifth top 10 on the chart.
“Fortnight” concurrently flies onto the Pop Airplay chart at No. 13, tying “Bad Blood,” in 2015, for Swift’s, and the tally’s, second-highest starting spot, after “Shake It Off” and Mariah Carey’s “Dreamlover,” in 1993, both soared in at No. 12.
On Adult Contemporary, “Fortnight” begins at No. 16, also marking Swift’s second-best bow, tied with “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” in 2012; her “Anti-Hero” arrived at No. 14 in 2022.
(The rankings reflect songs’ plays on reporting adult top 40, mainstream top 40 and adult contemporary radio stations, respectively. Airplay is monitored by Mediabase, with data provided to Billboard by Luminate.)
“Fortnight” received concentrated play upon its April 19 release on The Tortured Poets Department. Notably, iHeartMedia-owned Pop Airplay panelists WHTZ (Z100) New York and KIIS Los Angeles devoted their entire 12 a.m. and 9 p.m. hours that day to songs from the set.
Meanwhile, two other cuts from The Tortured Poets Department debut on Adult Pop Airplay: “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” at No. 36, and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” at No. 37. Audacy-owned WWMX Baltimore (28 plays April 19-25) and Hubbard Broadcasting’s WTMX Chicago (27) led Adult Pop Airplay reporters in first-week support for the former, which also enters Pop Airplay No. 40.
As previously reported, The Tortured Poets Department, released on Republic Records, has, after its first six days of release, broken the single-week streaming record in the U.S. for an album, according to initial reports to Luminate, as the 31 songs across its deluxe edition generated 799 million on-demand official streams in the U.S. April 19-24.
Plus, The Tortured Poets Department earned 2.5 million equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first six days. Of that sum, traditional album sales comprise 1.85 million.
The album’s final first-week numbers (equivalent album units, total traditional album sales and streaming figures) are expected to be announced by Billboard this Sunday, April 28, along with its assumed large debut on the multi-metric Billboard 200 albums chart. The top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart is expected to be revealed Monday, April 29.
All Billboard charts dated May 4 will update Tuesday, April 30, on Billboard.com.
