Fastest-selling album in the US for traditional sales

The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift (USA) racked up 3,479,500 traditional (aka “pure”) album sales – physical copies on CD, vinyl and cassette, plus digital downloads – in the week of 3–9 October 2025, allowing it to debut at No.1 on the US Billboard 200 on 18 October 2025. The record had been held since 12 December 2015 by Adele’s album 25, which shifted 3.378 million.

Showgirl’s traditional sales high also took it above Adele’s 25 – and every other album in the history of the Billboard 200 – in terms of total equivalent album units, posting 4.002 million for the week ending 9 October 2025.

Both totals (traditional and equivalent album units) are the largest sums on record since Billboard’s Luminate sales-tracking era commenced in 1991. 25’s equivalent album units maxed out at 3.482 million in 2015.

With 522,600 streaming equivalent albums logged (equating to 680.9 million on-demand official streams) in addition to its traditional sales, The Life of a Showgirl was a shoe-in for No.1. The 12-track album was her 15th consecutive chart-topping debut – the most No.1s by a solo artist on the Billboard 200.

Fastest-selling US albums by traditional (pure) album sales, as of 18 October 2025 (all Taylor Swift, unless stated otherwise; all relate to first-week sales): 1. The Life of a Showgirl (3,479,500, 18 October 2025); 2. 25 by Adele (3.378 million, 12 December 2015); 3. No Strings Attached by *NSYNC (2.416 million, 8 April 2000); 4. The Tortured Poets Department (1.914 million, 4 May 2024); 5. Celebrity by *NSYNC (1.880 million, 11 August 2001).