Billboard: Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" album spoke loud and clear last week, as it will debut at No. 1 on this week's Billboard 200 chart with a whopping 1,047,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's the largest sales week for an album since 50 Cent's "The Massacre" bowed at No. 1 with 1,141,000 in March of 2005.
Since SoundScan began tracking music sales in 1991, there have only been 16 instances where an album sold at least a million copies in a week. The last time we had a million-plus frame was when Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III" launched at No. 1 with 1,006,000 in June of 2008. The SoundScan-era record week is still held by NSYNC's "No Strings Attached," when it debuted at No. 1 with 2,416,000 in 2000.
And, "Speak" owns the biggest week for any album by a woman -- regardless of genre -- since 2000, when Britney Spears' "Oops! I Did It Again" danced into the No. 1 spot with 1,319,000. In total, just four albums by women have notched million-plus weeks. Aside from Swift and Spears, Whitney Houston's "The Bodyguard" soundtrack moved 1,061,000 over the busy Christmas week of 1992, and Norah Jones' "Feels Like Home" debuted at No. 1 with 1,022,000 in 2004.
