Taylor Swift photo courtesy of Big Machine Records
July 27, 2007 — Taylor Swift's self-titled debut album sits at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart in its 39th week of release, the slowest climb to the top since the Dixie Chicks' Wide Open Spaces took 51 weeks to reach No. 1 in 1999, according to Billboard.
Taylor sold 34,586 albums over the week, putting her at No. 15 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 album chart; she's the only country artist in that Top 15.
"For it to go number one after 39 weeks shows how awesome people have been about getting the album and telling other people," Taylor tells The Tennessean. "It hasn't peaked yet. I think I'm more excited about it going number one now than going number one the first week and then having the sales shrink."
The album, which was released in October, has sold a million copies with only two singles released. The debut single, "Tim McGraw," reached No. 5, and the current one, "Teardrops on My Guitar," is at No. 4 and still climbing. Five of Taylor's songs are among the best-selling songs on iTunes, and three are in the Top 20 of iTunes' top country songs.
Taylor, who is on tour with Brad Paisley, says, "All week long his tour manager kept saying, 'I'm looking at the numbers, and I think you might jump us.' I said, 'No way.'
"Album sales you can't control," she says. "That is whether people buy it or they don't buy it, so I have them to thank. Every single day I go out onstage and try to do the best that I can. That is where I can control it."