Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Stays at No. 1 in Week 2 With 338,000 Units, the Fifth-Best Weekly Tally for Any Album This Year

No one would have expected Taylor Swift‘s “The Life of a Showgirl” to lose its grip on the album chart in week 2, and it indeed held on at the top of the Billboard 200, with 338,000 equivalent album units in its second week out.

Last week, Swift set a record in the modern data-keeping books with 4.002 million units tallied. Even though this week’s figure marked a predictably significant drop-off from that record-buster, even the second week for “Showgirl” ranked as the fifth best week for any album this year, per Billboard and Luminate. The only albums that had a higher number than 338,000 units in a single frame this year were first-week figures for releases from Wallen, the Weeknd, Sabrina Carpenter and, of course, Swift’s own debut tally.

Breaking down that 338K figure for Swift’s second week, 101,000 of those units came in the form of pure album sales, Billboard reported. That sales figure represented the biggest drop for “Showgirl” in week 2, down 97%, after a first week that included all the pre-sales for the album, plus a number of release-week-only variants. Nonetheless, 101,000 is a pure-sales figure that few contemporary albums ever reach in a week, and “Showgirl” had little competition in easily standing atop Billboard’s separate Top Album Sales chart for a second week.

Streaming had a stronger hold, down from the juggernaut first-week figure by only 55%. The album’s tracks picked up a still-staggering 307.59 million on-demand official streams, which calculated out in the chart formula to 236,000 SEA (streaming equivalent album) units. Needless to say, “Showgirl” didn’t have any challengers in returning to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Streaming Albums chart.

Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” spent a dozen nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 this year. That’s a run at the top of the Billboard 200 that Swift will no doubt be hoping to match in the coming months. Looking at the release schedule, it appears as if there won’t be a lot standing in the way of an extended reign, as there are no further obvious pop blockbusters currently scheduled to come out between now and the end of 2025, barring any last-minute surprises from a superstar.