Taylor Swift’s Showgirl tops Billboard 200 again as ‘Ophelia’ gets its live debut
The album has reached a 15th nonconsecutive week at No. 1, while Swift brought one of its tracks to the Academy Museum Gala for the first time.
Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl has reached a 15th nonconsecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Billboard reported on October 18. The result covers a US tracking week ending October 15; separately, Swift performed an album track live for the first time at the Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles on October 17.
The album earned 87,000 equivalent album units, down 7% from the previous week, according to Luminate figures reported by Billboard. At the gala, Swift introduced ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ by telling the crowd: ‘This song, which we are playing for the very first time for you beautiful people, this is called The Fate of Ophelia,’ according to Rolling Stone.
How The Life of a Showgirl held No. 1
Of those 87,000 units, 47,000 came from streaming, 37,000 from album sales and 3,000 from track equivalent albums, Billboard reported. The streaming total represented 48.37 million on-demand official streams of the album’s tracks. Album sales rose 38% after some physical editions were restocked in Swift’s official store, according to Billboard, while streaming equivalent units fell 28%.
The album returned to No. 1 two weeks earlier after a September 25 deluxe reissue added four previously unreleased songs, including ‘Patient Zero.’ Its latest run is on the Billboard 200 chart dated October 24; Billboard said the full chart would be posted on October 20. Olivia Rodrigo’s you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love ranked second in the reported top five with 65,000 units.
What Swift performed at the Academy Museum Gala
Rolling Stone reported that Conan O’Brien introduced Swift before a four-song set. She opened with ‘Blank Space,’ then gave ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ its first live performance. She followed it with her Toy Story 5 song ‘I Knew It, I Knew You’ and closed with ‘Love Story.’ The gala performance was a separate event from the tracking week behind Billboard’s chart result.
The Academy Museum had announced Swift’s appearance earlier in October. Museum director Amy Homma said at the time that Swift’s work ‘resonates around the world’ and welcomed her performance as part of an evening honoring three filmmakers and supporting the museum’s mission to celebrate and preserve cinema, according to Rolling Stone.
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Sources and context
- Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Rules Billboard 200 for 15th WeekBillboard
- Taylor Swift Performs 'The Fate of Ophelia' Live for First Time at Academy Museum GalaRolling Stone
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.