OF SHOWGIRLS AND CASINOS: Taylor Swift is the first-week GOAT. Her new album’s debut is the biggest moment in the sales history of the business, no matter the total; she wears the all-time slugger’s crown. There’s never been anything quite like her on the musical landscape. Her combination of creative output and marketing acumen boggles the mind, and her ability to be ubiquitous in this ultra-segmented media era is truly singular.

So, naturally, the one topic of intense biz conversation of late has been just how big her latest Republic album, The Life of the Showgirl, will be. She has overtaken Adele’s first-week record and bowed just north of 4m, and will likely amass well over 6m by year’s end. For perspective, she will also surpass the YTD total of erstwhile 2025 leader Morgan Wallen in her second week.

Top-streaming earworm “The Fate of Ophelia,” which quickly roosted at #1 on all major DSP charts, looks to be about 40% bigger than any of the other songs on the album, though the entire set has taken up residence at the top of the Spotify chart. Meanwhile, Tay is also selling shit-tons of vinyl, CDs and cassettes (enough to notch 2.7m in activity on day one), not to mention a Walmart’s worth of merch and—get this—songwriting voice memos.

Tay’s boffo bow follows her second blockbuster turn on movie screens; the megastar’s Release Party of a Showgirl extravaganza/infomercial sold 2.5m+ tickets and grossed $33m, a decided shot in the arm for the nation’s beleaguered multiplexes—and Swift took 45% of that gross. The event included a lavish, Tay-directed video for “Ophelia” that has since gone wide, notching 13m+ YouTube views in its first day.

The cumulative U.S. activity to date on her formidable catalog, by the way, has exceeded 100m, led by 1989 (14.8m+), Fearless (11.8m+) and RED (9.2m+). Last year’s THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT has already passed the 8m mark.

The Taylor marketing machine is the envy of the biz. Then there are the "earned impressions." It's an index of Taylor’s gravitational pull, for instance, that her new music has even given a boost to “Sympathy Is a Knife,” the Charli xcx song widely believed to be her rebuke to the megastar, prompting yet more online chatter (not to mention copious crackpot theories) about Swift and Showgirl. Even the haters are feeding the fire.

THE RESISTANCE: Most of the records that populated the upper reaches of the Spotify USA chart a week ago have been blown to the back of beyond by Hurricane Taylor, but a handful of new acts—all positively glowing with Grammy buzz—have shown real resilience. Leading the pack is RCA star Tate McRae; her new single, “Tit for Tat,” is the second-biggest non-Taylor track at present (behind KPDH’s “Golden”). McRae also has two big hits from her last album, a Morgan Wallen duet and an F1 soundtrack song streaming vigorously. Next come Warner’s sombr, whose “back to friends” is Top 15 and who has two others going strong, Atlantic’s Alex Warren with the perpetually gigantic “Ordinary” and Island’s Olivia Dean, who has multiple tracks flying, including the very big “Man I Need” (Top 20 as of this writing).

It seems clear that real careers are underway here, and their ability to withstand the Tay onslaught bodes well for them all. We might add that the Full Stop-managed, CAA-repped McRae has become an extremely potent live act; she’s now selling out multiple arenas, including three MSGs, three Forums, two nights each in Detroit and Toronto as well as stops in Chicago and Philly. She could’ve added still more dates.

TEA TIME: It’s been a minute since a new British act broke big in America. Human Re Sources’ RAYE has done 570k on her album with some big streams and seems on the cusp of a breakthrough. RCA’s Myles Smith has had a sizable hit and Capitol’s Lewis Capaldi remains on the radar. But you might have to go back to Warner’s Dua Lipa to find the last U.K.-bred artist who turned into a full-fledged star here. The huge streams, TikTok frenzy and overall buzz on the aforementioned Olivia Dean, therefore, have corks popping on both sides of the pond. Dean’s “Man I Need” is a bona fide smash, and two other cuts from her recently released album have gotten serious traction. Nurtured by Capitol U.K.’s Jo Charrington and Tom Paul and managed by Emily Braham, Dean is now heavily touted for a Best New Artist Grammy nom, and Grammy whisperers say she may have the inside track. Has Dean’s ascent primed the marketplace for other Blighty breakouts?

BOOTS ON THE GROUND: Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson and Post Malone will headline Stagecoach, which has become a massively important festival as country, Americana and affiliated genres have grown increasingly central to the U.S. marketplace. AEG and Goldenvoice just keep striking gold in the desert. AEG also has such stadium acts as Zach Bryan, Luke Combs (both WME), Morgan Wallen, Kenny Chesney (Wasserman) and George Strait (ditto), not to mention arena fillers Garth Brooks (WME), Kacey Musgraves (WME ex-U.S.), Eric Church (also WME), Kelsea Ballerini (CAA) and Megan Moroney (UTA). MTG boss Louis Messina (who also books Taylor), Stacy Vee, Rich Schaefer and Adam Weiser are keeping the bourbon flowing.

BIG SHORTY ON THE WARPATH: The biz is truly abuzz over Irving Azoff’s recent comments regarding YouTube’s business practices. During The Wrap’s L.A. confab TheGrill 2025, Swirv went off on the platform as a “bully” that refused to pay its fair share for music. “When you get down to the end on a negotiation with them, they call your artists, they call the record company, they take your music down,” he said, charging that what YouTube pays for music is 20% of what its top competitor pays despite reportedly raking in $50 billion in 2024. “Obviously, their market power is unchecked at this point.” He also pointed out that similar practices with late-night TV shows had adversely affected networks’ bottom lines.

Azoff was shown a clip of himself from nine years ago at the same gathering, during which he criticized the DSP’s practices and called it “the worst offender” against music artists. If anything, he said after viewing the clip, they’ve gotten worse. The DOJ has been making threatening noises about YouTube parent Google and potential antitrust action. Could this skirmish play a role in whatever happens next? Lyor Cohen could not be reached for comment.

A THRIVING REPUBLIC: In addition to handing Imran and Justin yet another female pop star, Olivia Dean’s sales further burnish the already staggering current market share of the enlarged Republic (don’t make us say “collective,” please), which was 14.4 before Taylor dropped. Can the label surpass the 17.5 earned by Columbia at the height of Adelemania? The Lipmans were already burning up the road with Morgan, Demon Hunters, Sabrina, The Weeknd, Mr. Bieber and the 857 previous Taylor records that are still on the chart. When the new Tay release blows up Adele’s first-week record—possibly achieving a 4m opening, with wonderers wondering if it could do 7m by year’s end—they’ll get a sensational boost. Could they also have a new Drake album? There’s been persistent chatter about such a release, though it would be odd indeed for Drizzy to deliver a new project to the label he has been litigating against. The potential outcome of said litigation has some observers considering its impact on free speech—do we want what can be expressed in a song to be decided in a court of law?

WHAT THE ORACLES CAN’T PREDICT: The deal to change the ownership structure of TikTok appears to be near closing, with a U.S. consortium led by Oracle founder Larry Ellison, private equity firm Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz set to assume control of the enormously influential platform, separating it from ByteDance and thus ostensibly addressing concerns about Chinese data-mining and other global security issues. How the outsized role of Trump ally Ellison, whose media portfolio already includes Paramount (the latter, which owns CBS, is now making a play for Warner Discovery, which owns CNN), might affect the content on TikTok—the most influential platform of our time—remains to be seen. If that strikes you as an awful lot of media power in one person’s hands, you’re not alone. Is Ellison building something equivalent to the Murdoch empire?

In any case, it would seem that business as usual can resume on the short-form emporium, which continues to be a massive discovery and development tool for artists of all shapes and sizes.

RABBIT RUN: The choice of Bad Bunny as the next Super Bowl halftime performer feels like a natural, and by securing him for this most gigantic of looks Des Perez, JAY-Z and Team Roc Nation have definitely struck a blow for inclusiveness and diversity as those values are under relentless attack by the powers that be. Trump, with his ingrained tendency to ruin everything, is threatening ICE raids at the Super Bowl, so there’s a spectacle to ponder. Given how accommodating Apple has been to the regime thus far, it’s rather surprising that they would go against Dear Leader as regards the halftime show. Regardless, Benito (who’s repped for live by UTA) will likely make the most of the opportunity; he’s an electrifying performer with a highly developed sense of stagecraft—and the political moment.