Taylor Swift’s re-recording of ‘1989’ dominates UK music charts

Taylor Swift attends a premiere for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 11, 2023. (REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo)

LONDON — US music star Taylor Swift topped the UK singles and albums charts on Friday with her re-recording of her award-winning hit album “1989”.

The 21-track “1989” (Taylor’s Version), released last Friday nine years to the day the original album came out in 2014, debuted at No. 1 on the Official Albums Chart with “184,000 chart units, more than double that of the original 1989’s opening-week sales of 90,000,” the Official Charts Company said in a statement.

“But that’s just the start. Taylor also claims the biggest opening week for any album this year.”

The feat means the new release, which outperformed the rest of the Top 10 combined this week, is Swift’s 11th UK No.1 album.

She is the woman with the most UK No.1 albums this century, the Official Charts Company said, adding “1989” (Taylor’s Version) also topped vinyl charts.

The new album features five previously unreleased “From the Vault” tracks, including “Is It Over Now?”, which topped the Official Singles Chart with 4.9 million streams. Two others, “Now That We Don’t Talk” and “Slut!”, came in at No. 2 and 5 respectively.

“1989”, Swift’s fifth album which span hits like “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space”, topped charts around the world and won her album of the year, best pop vocal album and best music video for “Bad Blood” at the 2016 Grammy Awards.

The singer-songwriter has been launching re-releases of her earlier work after she lost control of the master recordings of her first six albums when she left the Big Machine record label in 2019, triggering a bitter and public dispute with its new owner, music executive Scooter Braun.

Braun sold Swift’s master recordings to a private equity company in a deal reported to be worth more than $300 million.