Taylor Swift can’t stop making chart history with “The Life of a Showgirl.” Shortly after it was announced that her album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 with record numbers, Billboard also revealed that all 12 songs from the collection were lined up at the summit of the Hot 100, at Nos. 1-12 — no skips. That marks the first time any album has had every one of its songs take over the chart’s top spots without interruption in the history of the Hot 100, going back to the 1950s.
Swift had previously become the first and only artist ever to command all 10 spots in the top 10 of the Hot 100. She did it with her previous two releases, “Midnights” and “The Tortured Poets Department.” But in both those instances, once you got beyond the top 10, her playlist was not completely unbroken — there were other artists’ tunes sneaking in before all of the songs from Swift’s album were accounted for.
Here is how the top 12 of the Hot 100 lines up for Swift’s first week out with her “Life of a Showgirl” songs:
No. 1: “The Fate of Ophelia”
No. 2: “Opalite”
No. 3: “Elizabeth Taylor”
No. 4: “Father Figure”
No. 5: “Wood”
No. 6: “Wi$h Li$t”
No. 7: “Actually Romantic”
No. 8: “The Life of a Showgirl,” feat. Sabrina Carpenter
No. 9: “Eldest Daughter”
No. 10: “Cancelled!”
No. 11: “Ruin the Friendship”
No. 12: “Honey”
(We know, we know… justice for “Honey,” right? It’ll come.)
Naturally, “The Life of Ophelia” had an easy No. 1 bow this week, as the official first single and music video from the album. Swift will no doubt be pleased to know that her lucky number comes into play here — it’s her 13th Hot 100 chart-topper. It came in with 92.5 million official U.S. streams,per Billboard and Luminate. That’s the highest number of streams for a song in a single week since Billboard changed its Hot 100 data collection process five years ago.
Besides the 92.5 million official streams that “Ophelia” picked up, it also benefitted in the chart calculation from 38.5 million radio airplay audience impressions. Unusually for the Hot 100, there were no individual track download sales contributing to any final totals; Swift has not made the songs from “Showgirl” available for individual sale.
Notably, YouTube streams have not counted toward the Hot 100 since 2020, Billboard notes — and that’s where a lot of the action came from for “The Life of Ophelia” in its first week, since the music video went up on YouTube on Sunday night of the album’s first weekend. (The video had been exclusive to her theatrical release, “Taylor Swift: The Life of a Showgirl,” for two and a half days prior to that.) If video views had been accounted for, her numbers would have been even higher… but No. 1 is No. 1.
Another one of Swift’s many fresh records: She is now the female artist with the highest number of songs to debut at No. 1, as this is her eighth single to do so. The achievement breaks her out of a tie with Ariana Grande.
Swift now is tied with Drake for having the fourth-highest number of No. 1 songs in history, with her 13 chart-toppers. The three artists she will have to set her sights on to set a record for most Hot 100 No. 1s are Rhianna, who is just one ahead of her with 14, Mariah Carey, who has 19, and the Beatles, who stand on top of the list with 20 to have hut the summit.
Other high-water marks were being set with “Ophelia.” Co-producer Max Martin earned his 26th No. 1 single, the most for any producer ever, but he was breaking his own record. (Shellback, who also co-produced with Martin and Swift, was getting his 10th No. 1 as a writer and 11th as a producer.)
Swift also helped get some glory for Sabrina Carpenter, her duet partner on the album’s title track. “The Life of a Showgirl” became her third No. 1 this year — succeeding two tracks of her own, “Manchild” and “Tears” — and her sixth top 10 track in the Hot 100 overall.
If you’re looking for what followed the unbroken string of a dozen Swift songs at the top, you would be right to assume it’s “Golden,” from “Kpop Demon Hunters,” knocked down to No. 13 from No. 1 by Swift’s fusillade. Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” is right behind it at No. 14, pushed out of the No. 2 slot.
