This week, Taylor Swift’s latest single, “Wildest Dreams”, cracked into the top ten, making it the fifth single to do so from her pop album 1989. With this latest accomplishment, she joins an elite group of musicians who have managed to secure that many big hits from just one record. Thus far, only 21 albums have seen that kind of success, and there are some pretty impressive names in that grouping, including the Black Eyed Peas, Paula Abdul, and both Janet and Michael Jackson (several times over).
The promotional campaign around 1989 has now been going strong for over a year, and there hasn’t been a time when she wasn’t all but controlling pop radio in this country. She began a new era with the surprise drop of “Shake It Off”, which introduced people to her new sound. The song went right to number one, as did follow up single “Blank Space”, which made her the first woman to replace herself at number one. Third cut “Style” peaked at number seven, but the album was by no means slowing down. Not long after that, the action and celebrity-packed video for “Bad Blood” was released, and the song became her third number one from 1989.
Not only is 1989 one of only 21 albums to have at least five top ten hits, but it is one of only 19 albums that have had at least three number ones, and it’s not done yet.
1989 is Taylor’s first album to send five singles to the top ten on the Hot 100, but that doesn’t mean her previous releases weren’t successful on the singles front. Both Fearless and Red had four tracks make it all the way to the top ten, and both had several others that came close.