Entertainment
Photograph by Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Few people thought she could do it, but Taylor Swift is on track to sell 1.2 million copies of her new album, 1989, in the first week of its release. Last week, Billboard gloomily predicted she would sell only 800,000 to 900,000, which wasn't so far-fetched: None of Swift's peers had crossed the one-week, 1 million-unit threshold this year. The prevailing theory was that she would fall victim to the same trend. Instead, Swift is embarrassing the naysayers. There are lessons to be learned from her success. Here are four of them:
Avoid Spotify. Swift and Big Machine, her independent record label, chose not to release 1989 on Spotify, the leading streaming music service, forcing her loyalists to purchase the record. Predictably, Spotify has argued that Swift has treated a large number of her fans shabbily. 'There are over 40 million music fans on Spotify and Taylor Swift has nearly 2 million active followers [on the music service] who will be disappointed by this decision,' a Spotify spokesman told Mashable. 'We are working to bring this album to fans on Spotify as soon as possible.' Perhaps, but Swift and her label did the same thing for several months with Red, her last release, and it sold 1.2 million copies in the first week, too. Why alter a winning formula?
Don't forsake retail. In the weeks before 1989's debut, Swift appeared in a stylish advertisement, hawking a special edition of the album with three extra songs and three ' songwriting voice memos.' It's paying off. Billboard reports that in the first two days 1989 was on sale, Swift moved 247,000 units at Target, making it her second-largest sales generator after iTunes Store. Interestingly enough, Swift sold a mere 30,000 at . Did Wal-Mart bury the record to punish Swift for cozying up to a competitor? If so, it obviously hasn't hurt her.
Genre is not such a big deal. Last week the New York Times warned that sales of 1989 might suffer because Swift had jettisoned her Nashville roots on the album and alienated powerful country radio programers. 'A lot of folks wished that she would have done some songs that would be more compatible with country radio, but she hasn't,' Joel Raab, a country radio consultant told the New York Times. It turns out Swift can thrive without their support. The public has long been fascinated by her transformation from country singer to pop star. That's why there's been so much interest in 1989. It's a crucial chapter in her personal narrative, and fans care more deeply about that than genre choices.
Selling 1 millions albums is hard work. There was a time when many pop stars acted as if there was something déclassé about selling albums. They were artists, after all, loathe to sully themselves with anything blatantly commercial. Swift takes a different view. She pushed her album in Target ads, and also one for Diet Coke in which she played with a horde of adorable kittens. Last week, Swift conveniently appeared in posters for Subway which in which she urge her admirers to enjoy a Diet Coke and a hearty sandwich and 'pre-buy' her forthcoming albums. Apparently, this is what you have to do to sell millions of albums these day. Granted, it's tough to imagine Bono or the Edge in a Diet Coke commercial, but the alternative isn't working for them either.
Entities 0 Name: Swift Count: 10 1 Name: Coke Count: 3 2 Name: New York Times Count: 2 3 Name: Taylor Swift Count: 2 4 Name: Spotify Count: 1 5 Name: Joel Raab Count: 1 6 Name: Nashville Count: 1 7 Name: Wal-Mart Count: 1 8 Name: Bono Count: 1 9 Name: Big Machine Count: 1 10 Name: Kevin Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1yKbYxT Title: Taylor Swift uses social media, and sells music Description: Kevin Mazur | TAS | Getty Images for TAS The music industry-in the form of album sales-may be dying a long slow death for everyone else, but not for Taylor Swift. Her "1989" album is on track to sell 1.2 million copies in its first week, just 100,000 fewer than her last album, "Red," sold in 2012.
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