With sales of 500,000 copies in it's first day, Taylor Swift's Red [Review link] has broken all kinds of modern country music sales records. Say what you want about what her true genre is, the album sales reflect a huge connect with the audience that is rare for any artist, particularly an artist six years into a career. This is what makes Taylor Swift unique. In the world of 'pop' stardom, there typically aren't many stars who can last more than two-three years on top yet here Taylor Swift is with sales projections topping out over a million copies for the week of release.
And she's done this without the benefit of a couple of sales that helped Speak Now and Lady Gaga's Born This Way album sell. Amazon and Google Play loss-leader discounts. In fact, Scott Borchetta was aware of what that might mean for the perception of Taylor's sales so Big Machine Records gave iTunes the Digital exclusive for the first week of release. This has helped the album shatter the Coldplay record for iTunes Album Sales in one week.
The album is also expected to set sales records at Target, where the exclusive double disc set with separate cover art is sold. The set is also available with a Large Pizza from Papa John's Pizza for $22 and also with her new perfume line as well. These latter two are just a couple more smart, non-traditional ways to promote and sell Red.
Taylor's previous album Speak Now sold over 1,000,000 copies in its first week of release in 2010 and with the shut-out digital retailers getting the album next week, look for the possibility of Red sales to stay strong for a second week, perhaps with loss-leader sales of the album.
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