Taylor Swift’s Showgirl has already sold 3.5 million copies, beating Adele

When Adele's album 25 came out 10 years ago — featuring the hit Hello — it sold nearly 3.5 million copies out of the gate, breaking longstanding opening-week sales numbers. An astonished music industry assumed that in the new age of streaming, no album could ever top it.

- STORY: BEN SISARIO / NYT

Then came Taylor Swift.

The Life Of A Showgirl, which came out last week, has now surpassed Adele's decade-old record. According to initial sales reports collected by the tracking firm Luminate, and reported to Billboard, Showgirl has logged the equivalent of at least 3.5 million sales in the United States in its first five days on sale, and it still had two days to go before the opening-week sales period ended.

The success comes even as Swift navigates a mixed reaction to Showgirl. For an artist accustomed to receiving heavy helpings of praise from critics and fans, the responses have been all over the map, including some notably harsh reviews — Pitchfork gave it 5.9 out of 10, The Guardian two stars out of five — and many disappointed hot takes on social media among the usual hosannas.

“I welcome the chaos,’ Swift said of the reactions in a video interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music. “I'm not the art police,’ she added.