Who is responsible for the biggest-selling album of 2024 so far? (Picture: Getty)
It came as absolutely no surprise this week when Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was confirmed as the biggest album of 2024 so far.
The American singer-songwriter, 34, is currently in the middle of the worldwide sell-out Eras Tour, playing songs from the brand new album to stadiums across the globe.
And, after topping the US album charts for 10 consecutive weeks, the Platinum-selling record has now been confirmed as the UK’s best-seller for the year so far.
Data released by the Official Charts Company confirmed that not only was it the most streamed album of 2024, but that it had also sold more physical copies than any other record, too.
It beat stiff competition from the likes of The Weeknd’s compilation album The Highlights, Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, and Olivia Rodrigo’s second album Guts.
The feat is yet another achievement in a long line of them for the album, which was released in April and has produced number one single Fortnight – it topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
It’s been another year of domination for Taylor Swift (Picture: Jo Hale/Redferns)
And the numbers are even more impressive, with Official Charts confirming: ‘Tortured Poets has accumulated over 542,200 chart units, including 251,000 physical sales, making it the most physically-purchased LP of the year so far.’
The statement continued: ‘Upon its record-breaking number one debut in the UK, Tortured Poets Department became Taylor’s 12th UK number one album, matching Madonna’s long-held all-time chart record.’
Tortured Poets Department also posted the best opening week of any album since Ed Sheeran’s 2017 album Divide, and saw several of Taylor’s older albums re-enter the top 20 on the albums chart.
It’s been a great year for Noah Kahan and his song Stick Season (Picture: John Shearer/Getty)
The Tortured Poets Department has been number one in the US for 10 weeks (Picture: AP/Republic Records)
2024 also proved to be a massive year for Noah Kahan, whose album Stick Season was first released in 2022 but has seen its popularity soar in the last 12 months – in total it has now shifted 1.37 million chart units.
The data has been released as part of the Official Chart’s half-year review, which also confirmed that Noah Kahan’s single Stick Season is the biggest of 2024.
And it seems Sophie Ellis Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor has had a better year in 2024 than it did in 2001 or 2002, back when it was originally in the UK charts.
The song was only the 60th and 87th best-selling song in 2001 and 2002 respectively, but in 2024 it’s currently sitting eighth, marking a huge improvement from 22 years ago.
Other notable releases among the top 40 biggest albums of 2024 in the UK are the likes of Billie Eilish, whose album Hit Me Hard and Sift rounds out the top five.
Massive releases from the likes of Beyoncé and Ariana Grande are comfortably inside the top 20, while compilation albums released by the likes of Eminem, Abba, and Sir Elton John are close to the top.
Eminem’s 2005 compilation album Curtain Call: The Hits is the eighth biggest album of 2024, while Abba’s Gold compilation (released in 1992) is ninth.
Sir Elton’s Diamonds, originally put out in 2017, still dominates the charts, landing in 10th seven years after its initial release, while Fleetwood Mac also feature in the top 10.
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