Future and Metro Boomin, two of the big kahunas of Atlanta hip-hop, have released a pair of joint albums in the last month — wisely getting them to market ahead of Taylor Swift’s new “The Tortured Poets Department,” which has the music industry braced for gigantic sales figures.
“We Don’t Trust You,” the first LP by the rapper Future and the producer Metro Boomin, went to No. 1 three weeks ago with solid streaming numbers. “We Still Don’t Trust You,” its sequel, opens at No. 1 this week with the equivalent of 127,500 sales in the United States, largely from its 163 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate. (“We Don’t Trust You” is No. 3.)
By the time next week’s chart lands, however, those numbers will look minuscule. “Tortured Poets,” released Friday, was credited with 1.4 million in traditional album sales — meaning CDs, vinyl LPs and full-album downloads — on its first day out, according to Billboard. That indicates a huge number of pre-orders; Swift’s website was selling the album as early as Grammy night in February, when she announced it from the stage. On Spotify alone, the songs from “Tortured Poets” were streamed 300 million times around the world, a new record on the platform.
Numbers that big on Day 1 mean that Swift is on track for the biggest opening sales week of her career — more than for “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” last year (1,653,000) or “Midnights” in 2022 (1,578,000), her best so far. How high Swift’s numbers could go is anybody’s guess, but the big target is Adele’s “25,” which opened with 3,482,000 in 2015.
Swift delivered “Tortured Poets” with an aggressive and far-reaching promotional plan, including tie-ins with streaming services, social media platforms and radio networks. The album was released in an array of collectible physical products, including colored vinyl and signed editions; by making it a surprise double album — bringing its standard track list to 31 songs — Swift stood to benefit from even more clicks on streaming platforms.
Aside from Future and Metro Boomin, this week’s chart also includes Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” at No. 2, after two weeks at the top; Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” at No. 4; and Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season,” in fifth place. “Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023),” a greatest-hits compilation by Linkin Park, opens at No. 6.