At this point, the fact that Taylor Swift ranks as the bestselling musician when it comes to the vinyl format in the U.S. in 2023 shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who is familiar with the singer’s popularity and her success when it comes to wax records. The superstar has a long track record of selling extremely well on vinyl, but her performance last year is still impressive—and even hard to believe.
Swift was responsible for 7% of all vinyl albums sold in the U.S. in 2023, according to Billboard. On her own, Swift sold 3.484 million vinyl albums across her many successful titles available on the format.
In 2023, Americans purchased 49.61 million vinyl albums. That sum is up more than 14% from the year prior. Vinyl has been exploding in popularity for years now, and the category continues to grow larger and larger, as new audiences pick up their favorite new releases and classics on the favored physical form.
Swift’s name is all over Luminate’s ranking of the top-selling vinyl albums in the United States last year. The chart-topper claims five of the top 10 bestsellers on the format. That lineup of wins includes the highest-ranking three titles.
The bestselling vinyl album of 2023 in America was Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version). The set, which was released in October, sold 1.014 million copies in only a few months. It was the only title to hit the million-sales mark on vinyl last year.
Swift’s own Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) lands in second place, with 501,000 copies sold on vinyl. The “Is It Over Now?” singer claims the only two titles to score half a million purchases (or more) on the format in 2023. She also appears in third place with Midnights, which nearly hit 500,000 copies sold. That bestseller ended the year with 492,000 vinyl albums purchased.
Vinyl sales helped make 1989 (Taylor’s Version) the bestselling album in the U.S. in 2023. It was not the most-consumed effort–that honor belongs to Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time–but it was the fourth-biggest title. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) sold 1.975 million copies last year, with more than half of those purchases being on vinyl. That kind of performance is nearly unheard of in today’s streaming-focused world, but Swift defies logic and trends when it comes to sales.
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