1989 (Taylor’s Version) Earns Biggest Billboard Debut of Taylor Swift’s Career

The album marks the fourth re-record Swift has released as she works to regain ownership of her music

Taylor Swift announces ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ at SoFi Stadium during The Eras Tour.

Taylor Swift never goes out of style.

The singer’s re-recorded version of her 2014 album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), claimed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, with Swift, 33, earning the biggest album debut of her career.

The album, which dropped Oct. 27, is the singer’s 13th No. 1 on the Billboard chart, and its monstrous sales in the first week alone — 1.6 million units in the U.S. (and over 3.5 million units worldwide) — broke the record she’d previously set for herself with the release of the original version of the album in 2014, at 1.287 million.

1989 (Taylor’s Version) also marks the biggest debut of any album, based on unit sales, since Adele dropped 25 in 2015, per Billboard. Of all album sales since 1991, Swift’s re-recording boasts the sixth-largest sales week, behind Adele, *NSYNC, Eminem and the Backstreet Boys.

When Swift dropped the re-recorded album last week, she wrote on Instagram, “I was born in 1989, reinvented for the first time in 2014, and a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album I love so dearly. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the magic you would sprinkle on my life for so long.”

The “Anti-Hero” singer continued, “This moment is a reflection of the woods we’ve wandered through and all this love between us still glowing in the darkest dark. I present to you, with gratitude and wild wonder, my version of 1989. It’s been waiting for you. Taylor.”

1989 (Taylor’s Version) marks the fourth re-recording from the Grammy winner, coming several months after she dropped Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) in July and following the 2021 re-releases of Fearless and Red.

Taylor Swift performs at SoFi Stadium in L.A. on The Eras Tour in August, 2023.

The deluxe edition of the album once again features rapper Kendrick Lamar on “Bad Blood.” Swift said that having the rapper re-record his verse was “surreal and bewildering.”

“Watching @kendricklamar create and record his verses on the Bad Blood remix was one of the most inspiring experiences of my life,” she wrote on Instagram, sharing a throwback photo with Lamar, presumably from around when the two originally recorded the collaboration. “I still look back on this collaboration with so much pride and gratitude, for the ways Kendrick elevated the song and the way he treats everyone around him.”

Taylor Swift performs in Nashville on The Eras Tour in May 2023.

Swift announced the re-record during the last Los Angeles show of The Eras Tour in August, showing fans the cover art and release date for the album on a big screen before performing fan-favorite “New Romantics” as one of her surprise songs.

She later shared more on Instagram, writing, “To be perfectly honest, this is my most FAVORITE re-record I’ve ever done because the 5 From the Vault tracks are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind. But not for long!”

She added, “The 1989 album changed my life in countless ways.”