TAYLOR SWIFT BRINGS BACK THE MILLION! FIRST ARTIST SINCE 2005!

Toronto, ON – With 1,046,718 copies sold in the U.S. in the first week of release, Taylor Swift’s Speak Now  album has scored SoundScan’s largest single-week sales total since 2005 and is the highest debuting country studio album in US history. In Canada, the album is currently the number 1 selling album.  Taylor’s new single “Mine” is currently Top 10 at Canadian Country radio and #1 on the Much Music video countdown.

 

Speak Now accounted for 18% of total albums sold in the U.S. last week, setting a new record for percentage of total sales in a single week. One out of every five CDs or download sales last week was Taylor’s Speak Now album, which was released on Open Road Recordings in Canada.

Speak Now is just the 16^th album in the SoundScan era to sell over a million copies in one week, and Taylor joins Whitney Houston, Norah Jones and Britney Spears as the only female artists in history to sell more than a million albums in the US in a debut week. With 278,000 digital albums sold, Taylor broke her own record for most country digital albums sold in one week (set by 2008’s Fearless album). Taylor, who earlier this year won four Grammys – including Album of the Year for Fearless, wrote the Speak Now album entirely by herself, and co-produced the project with Nathan Chapman.

 

The Speak Now track “Mean” was last week‘s Hot Shot Debut on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the third straight week Taylor had held Hot Shot Debut honors. Taylor is the only artist in the 52-year history of the Hot 100 to achieve this feat. And just last month, Taylor set a new Billboard record for Most Top 10 debuts on the all-genre Hot 100 in the history of the chart.

Speak Now’s sales and chart success is matched by the album’s critical acclaim. Rolling Stone awarded the CD 4 stars, writing: “People like to fixate on Taylor Swift’s youth, as if to say, yeah, she’s pretty good for her age. But that just begs a question: Where are all the older people who are supposedly making better pop records than Taylor Swift? There aren’t any.” The New York Times calls Speak Now “the most musically diverse [album] of her career…. And it’s excellent too, possibly her best,” and the Associated Press hailed Taylor as “a country-pop Jane Austen.”

 

“Brilliant,” raved the Hollywood Reporter, and Entertainment Weekly writes, “What Swift does extremely well is tell a story: Speak Now‘s 14 tracks are perfectly contained snow globes of romance and catharsis, whole cinematic narratives rendered in four-to six-minute miniatures.” Us Weekly dubbed Speak Now “another unrestrained grand-slam,” USA Today says, “when Taylor Swift speaks on her new album, you should listen,” and People wrote that the “songs play out like journal entries in which the country-pop phenom lets it all out in delicious, narrative-driving detail.”

 

Taylor plans to tour in support of Speak Now, and is currently slated to play 85 shows in 18 countries in 2011. Her 15-month, 107-date Fearless 2009 / 2010 Tour sold out arenas and stadiums in 88 cities in five countries spanning four continents.

 

Fans can take a look inside Taylor’s Speak Now album – from the recording, to performances, to the behind-the-scenes of release week – on Thanksgiving night, when NBC will air the one-hour primetime special “Taylor Swift – Speak Now.” The program will follow Taylor on her journey from New York City to Los Angeles through interviews, events, and all the in-the-moment experiences of a four-time Grammy winner releasing brand new music, as well as showcase multiple one-of-a-kind performances.

 

Founded by Ron Kitchener, Open Road Recordings is home to JUNO and Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) Award winning groups Doc Walker, Emerson Drive, The Road Hammers (certified Gold in Canada), classic Canadian roots group Prairie Oyster, and break out success stories Dean Brody, High Valley, The Higgins, Ridley Bent and Tara Oram.  Open Road Recordings represents Big Machine and Valory Records in Canada, which includes Taylor Swift (certified six times Platinum in Canada), Reba, Rascal Flatts, Jewel, Steel Magnolia, Justin Moore, Jack Ingram, Jimmy Wayne, Trisha Yearwood, and more. Open Road Recordings is a partnership with MapleCore Ltd., distributed by Universal Music Canada.

 

 www.taylorswift.com