Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” has been working its way down the Hot 100 ever since it arrived on top of the tally a month ago. This week, the single slips again, but manages to hold on and earn another turn inside the top 10. The tune has a very strong sales count to thank for one more week in the highest tier–and they weren’t the average purchases of a hit song, either.
Billboard reports that “Fortnight” sold 19,000 copies last week in America. That sum is up 480% from one frame to the next.
The surge in sales of “Fortnight” isn’t random, and it wasn’t spurred on by fans coming together to keep the song afloat. The singer’s team shipped the CD singles of the single, so all the Swifties who purchased that physical edition of the cut when it became available played a role in that huge leap.
Billboard counts albums and songs as officially sold not when they’re purchased, but when they reach the buyer. For physical editions, that can be shortly after the sale is finalized. In other instances, such as this time around with the CD of “Fortnight,” it might come weeks later when the product actually ships.
15,000 of the 19,000 copies that “Fortnight” sold last week were on CD. That means that 4,000–or fewer–will count toward the tune’s placement on the Digital Song Sales chart, which only looks at purchases on platforms like iTunes and Amazon Music. Those 15,000 CDs do count toward the song’s performance on other tallies, though, such as the Hot 100.
A recently-released remix of the duet between Swift and Post Malone is also helping keep “Fortnight” afloat. Music duo Blond:ish dropped an inventive reworking of the track, which Swifties purchased in fairly low numbers, though that production did contribute to the title’s overall success.
This week, “Fortnight” slides from No. 8 to No. 10 on the Hot 100. It looks like it will fall outside the highest tier soon, though it will likely continue to chart for weeks, if not months. Continued radio play may also steady the track’s backtracking.
