Taylor Swift Sells 5 Million Copies of “1989” in U.S. in Just 36 Weeks

At a time of crisis in sales for the record industry, the singer has challenged the trend with her latest album, entitled with the year of her birth, and has become the first artist to come out with five platinum records in so short a time since in August 2004 Usher achieved the feat with “Confessions” in just 19 weeks, Billboard magazine reported on Thursday.

“1989” – which went on sale on Oct. 27, 2014 – sold 1.3 million copies worldwide during its first week, something that hadn’t been done since 2002.

The sales success, and the record has sold almost nine million copies worldwide to date, overlaps with that of the music video for “Blank Space,” which on July 3 became the fastest-ever video to achieve one billion visits on Vevo, YouTube’s official music channel.

The winner of seven Grammys, the 25-year-old Swift has become one of the most influential stars in the music world, as she proved when she wrote an open letter entitled “To Apple, Love Taylor,” announcing that she would not make her latest album available on iTunes due to the firm’s policy of allowing people to access it free for three months, and she managed to get the company to change its policy.

Swift, who has also declared herself to be an enemy of the “streaming” Spotify music platform, has been a great and ongoing hit with the media for her romantic relationships (with Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, Joe Jonas and, now, Calvin Harris) as well as for her feuds with other pop stars, like Katy Perry.

“Shake it off,” along with “Blank Space” and “Bad Blood,” made it to No. 1 on Billboard’s popularity list, a feat she also achieved with “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” back in 2012.