Kanye West’s streak of 11 number one albums has ended, as his album Vultures 2 with Ty Dolla Sign debuted at number two, being surpassed by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department.
The latest release from Swift, 34, ended a long streak for West, 47, TMZ reported on Sunday.
West, whose career has been mired in a torrent of anti-Semitic comments since the fall of 2022, sold an estimated 107,000 album equivalent units in his first week. Billboard reported on Sunday.
This was West’s 13th album to occupy one of the top two spots on the chart in his career, Billboard reported.
Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department topped the chart this week with sales of 142,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. during the week ending Aug. 8, Luminate reported.
Kanye West’s streak of 11 No. 1 albums has ended, as his album Vultures 2 featuring Ty Dolla Sign debuted at No. 2, surpassed by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department.
The album has been at the top spot for 14 weeks since its release last April. Prior to Swift, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time had been there for 19 (non-consecutive) weeks in a period spanning March 2023 and March 2024.
The last female artist to achieve the feat was Adele’s hit album 21, which stayed at the top spot for 24 (non-consecutive) weeks between 2011 and 2012.
For the week, The Tortured Poets Department led all album sales, while trailing only Wallen’s One Thing at a Time on the top streaming albums chart.
According to Billboard, Swift’s album sales increased thanks to multiple promotional boosters, including a series of five digital album variations that Swift briefly sold online.
Variations included all 16 songs on the album with individual bonus tracks available for $4.99 each.
Tracks included a ‘draft of the first phone memo’ for Swift’s My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys and four live tracks from The Eras Tour.
Swift’s online store also sold a trio of digital variants featuring exclusive songs and an autographed CD edition, in addition to holding a sale.
This week marked Swift’s 83rd time topping the Billboard 200 chart, the most ever, with the late Elvis Presley in second place among solo artists with 67 total weeks. Swift and Jay-Z are tied for the most No. 1 albums on the chart with 14 each.
West’s Vultures 2 album was his 13th career top-two album, Billboard reported. Photographed in Italy earlier this year
Swift’s album has been at the top spot for 14 weeks since its release last April. Photographed in May in France
West made an apparent reference to Swift and her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, on his new album in the song “Lifestyle (Demo),” with the lyric: “I squeeze my Taylor joints at the end like Travis Kelce.”
Kelce’s father, Ed Kelce, posted an article on DailyMail.com about the song on his Facebook page, writing: “Mental illness on full display.”
The professional achievement comes after nearly 15 years of feud between the recording artists, as the seeds of the feud between them were planted at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on September 13, 2009 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
In the infamous exchange, West infamously interrupted Swift during her victory speech for Best Female Video for You Belong With Me, which had been nominated against Beyoncé’s Single Ladies.
West appeared on stage and took Swift’s microphone, telling her, “Hey, Taylor, I’m so happy for you, I’ll let you finish. But Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time.”
While the music stars seemed to be on better terms in the years that followed (they were photographed at several events in the years since), things blew up after the release of West’s 2016 song, Famous.
West claimed at the time that Swift had given him her blessing to refer to her as a “B****” in the song’s lyrics, in reference to the VMAs incident. Swift said she never came to such an agreement, leading to a public feud with West after he and ex-wife Kim Kardashian in July 2016 released a call West and Swift had about the content of the song Famous.
Kardashian alluded to Swift being a snake following the call-out, saying in a tweet: ‘Wait is the actual National Snake Day!?!? They have holidays for everyone, I mean everything these days!’
The seeds of discord between West and Swift were planted at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on September 13, 2009, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
In the infamous exchange, West infamously interrupted Swift during her victory speech for Best Female Video for You Belong With Me, which had been nominated over Beyoncé’s Single Ladies.
Swift spoke with Fashion on how he dealt with the high-profile scandal, saying he channeled his energies into his material.
“A massive public humiliation, with millions of people saying you’ve been cancelled, is a very isolating experience,” she said of the difficult moment. “When you say someone’s been cancelled, it’s not about a TV show. It’s about a human being.
‘You are sending massive amounts of messages to this person to shut up, disappear or it could also be perceived as ‘kill yourself.”
She spoke about the creative process in the wake of the scandal, which reportedly inspired the songs This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things and Look What You Made Me Do.
“I knew immediately that I needed to make music about it because I knew it was the only way I could survive,” Swift told the outlet. “It was the only way I could preserve my mental health and also tell the story of what it’s like to go through something so humiliating.”
