CHARTING TAY'S PATH TO A MILLION

Will Taylor Swift do 1 million in total activity in her first week? There's little doubt that she'll reach that number worldwide with ease with new set Lover; the question is whether she'll once again surpass the million mark domestically, as she's done four times previously—more than any other artist.

Let's take a look at the U.S. performance of prior set reputation and how a range of streams, digital retail and physical sales might influence her total. This is bearing in mind, as we noted in a prior story, a precipitous 43% decline in the download market since reputation's 2017 release, while streaming has grown significantly and physical retail has shown resilience.

As we reported, downloads made up 58% of reputation's first-week total, which is unlikely to happen with Lover. So Taylor will need a major uptick in streams as well as robust retail to make up the difference. Of course, reputation was windowed during its debut week, and Lover (with a streaming-friendly 18 tracks) will be going wide to all DSPs at a time when far more people are streaming. Plus, Tay's got initiatives in place with Spotify and has worked closely with Amazon; as you'll have observed if your eyes are working and are pointed at our site, the overall campaign is massive and awareness is mega-high. Even so, as this graphic relates, the climb to a 1m first week U.S. could be a steep one.

The odds may be slightly better of a 1m domestic RTD total, given that she's had four songs in the marketplace prior to the album's drop, with the awareness campaign gathering steam during that time.

Oh, and 1m worldwide is a lock.