Taylor Swift‘s Folklore is “the 1” for 2020 — the no. 1, that is.
The singer-songwriter’s first surprise album of the year finished 2020 as the year’s best-selling album in the U.S., according to MRC Data (the source of music sales info for the Billboard charts). Swift has now had the top-selling album of the year five times, the first artist to do so since MRC’s first full year of tracking in 1992. She previously topped the year-end list with Fearless in 2009, 1989 in 2014, Reputation in 2017, and Lover in 2019.
Folklore has broken a litany of records since its release in July. It became 2020’s best-selling album in September after spending six consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200 chart, and remains the only album of the year to sell more than 1 million copies. (Swift also achieved that milestone in 2019, with Lover.) In September, Swift also surpassed Whitney Houston for most cumulative weeks at No. 1 by a woman in the Billboard 200 chart, breaking a 33-year-old record.
Of course, that’s just Folklore. Swift’s second surprise album of 2020, Evermore, arrived in December and quickly topped the Billboard 200. Despite dropping in the final weeks of the year, Evermore also landed among the top 10 best-selling albums of 2020. The deluxe edition of the album dropped on streaming this week, with two bonus songs, “It’s Time to Go” and “Right Where You Left Me.”
