Taylor Swift's transformation from country singer to full-on pop icon was cemented this week as her new album, "1989," set history-making first-week sales of 1.287 million, according to a Nielsen report. The sales are the most since Eminem's "The Eminem Show" sold 1.322 million units in 2002. The numbers are good news for a struggling music industry.
With only a few months left, "1989" is the only album released in 2014 to sell more than a million copies this year. Earlier this week the 24-year-old vocalist announced she wasn't putting her new album on free music streaming service Spotify and removed the rest of her catalog as well. Swift has been critical of free music streaming services like Spotify in the past, which let users listen for free while paying music artists a percentage of advertising revenue. Swift's move doesn't appear to have hurt sales of the new album, which features the hit single, "Shake It Off."
-- Variety.com