Taylor Swift’s ‘folklore’ sets streaming records, sells 1.3 million worldwide in under 24 hours

Beth GarrabrantWe won’t know exactly how many units Taylor Swift‘s new album folklore sold for another week, but it’s off to a smashing start.

Less than 24 hours after its release on Friday, folklore had sold the equivalent of 1.3 million units worldwide.  It also set a new Spotify global record for first-day album streams by a female artist, with just under 81 million streams.  The project, Taylor’s eighth, was also the most-streamed pop album on Apple Music over its first 24 hours, with just under 35.5 million streams.

In addition, folklore has garnered the best reviews of any other album of Taylor’s career: On Metacritic, it had a ranking of 94 as of Saturday night.  All of her previous albums are ranked anywhere from 79 to 71.

Meanwhile, fans who theorized that the folklore song “betty” was named after Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively‘s third daughter — who arrived last year but whose name has never been publicly revealed — were right.

People magazine says that according to a “source with knowledge of the situation,” Betty is indeed the name of the couple’s daughter, who was born in October.  Taylor is good friends with Ryan and Blake, and the song “betty” features two other characters named Inez and James — the names of the couple’s other two daughters.

And that’s not the only real person who inspired one of the songs on folklore.  “Last Great American Dynasty” is about socialite Rebekah Harkness, who used to own Taylor’s mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. She died in 1982.

By Andrea Dresdale
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