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JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): This week, Taylor Swift is back on top. Her new album, “1989,” named for the year she was born, debuted Monday and is on track to sell a million copies in its first week.
It’s not just the only record to do so this year, but it’s triple the mark of the second bestselling album by the band Coldplay. And the million sales in the first week is a feat not accomplished since Swift’s last platinum album, 2012′s “Red.”
For the music industry as a whole, which has seen a 14 percent drop in album sales just from last year, it’s a shot in the arm heading into the big holiday season.
Zack O’Malley Greenburg covers the industry for “Forbes.”
ZACK O’MALLEY GREENBURG, Forbes: For the music business, it’s always important to have these kind of tentpole albums going into the holiday season, ones that you can point to and say that this is the big seller of the year and this is going to be a hot kind of gift item.
JEFFREY BROWN: Swift has always held crossover appeal, but “1989″ marks her official move from Nashville darling to New York pop queen, a move that has its own risks, says Washington Post music critic Chris Richards.
CHRIS RICHARDS, The Washington Post: This came as a big declaration that she was now going to be a pop artist with a capital P.
I think it’s shrewd as a business position to try to appeal to that larger audience, but part of what made her such a superstar is the fact that she was both a massive pop star and someone that people thought they could relate to personally.
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