Taylor Swift has been blasted for taking her discography off Spotify, but her plan may be working — 1989, her latest album, sold almost 1.3 million copies in the U.S. in its first week.
Swift equates music streaming with piracy, saying it devalues artists' work. Whether or not her opinions about Spotify and other streaming sites are correlated with her album sales, she's doing something right: 1989 is the most popular album in 12 years, according to Nielsen Soundscan. The album sold more copies in the U.S. its first week than any album since Eminem's The Eminem Show in 2002.
1989 is the first album of 2014 to go platinum (while Disney's Frozen soundtrack went platinum this year, it was actually released in 2013).
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In addition to 1989's success, Swift is also the first artist to have three albums in a row go platinum immediately — Speak Now and Red both sold more than one million copies during their first weeks, as well.
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