Taylor Swift becomes first female to replace herself at top of US singles chart
The pop star's new hit 'Blank Space' ended the four-week reign of 'Shake It Off'
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Your support makes all the difference.Taylor Swift has shaken off the haters to become the first female to succeed herself on the US singles chart.
The pop star’s new song “Blank Space” rocketed from number 13 to take the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, replacing her prior hit “Shake It Off” after its four week reign.
Swift, 24, is the tenth act in history to achieve this feat, following the likes of Usher and The Beatles. She is also the first artist to score two number one singles so far this year.
On the US albums chart, Swift’s latest album 1989 remained at number one for a third consecutive week after being named the fastest-selling record in 12 years earlier this month.
The album sold a massive 1.29 million copies in its first week of sale and has already passed the 2 million sales mark. Only Disney’s ever-popular Frozen soundtrack is beating 1989 to the best-selling album of 2014 title, selling 3.25 million to date.
However, from 3 December, Billboard will be updating its album chart to measure broader music consumption – taking into account both digital track sales and on-demand streaming to “provide a better sense of an album’s popularity”.
Ten digital track sales or 1,500 song streams from an album will count as one album sale in the new chart, with figures from services such as Spotify and Google Play included in the data.
This could signal a problem for Swift, who removed her entire catalogue from Spotify after arguing that musicians should not 'undervalue their art' by letting fans listen to their songs for free.
In the UK, music played on streaming services does not currently count towards the albums chart, but the Official Charts Company is currently looking into changing this. Streaming data was introduced to the UK singles chart in July.
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