Taylor Swift’s latest single tipped for 500,000 downloads first week sales in US, video sets new record

Despite some lukewarm reviews, Taylor Swift’s new singe Look What You Made Me Do has been a locomotive out of the box.

On its first day of sale last Friday, as it got 2,000 radio spins across America, it generated almost 100,000 downloads in the United States in the first three hours, and 200,000 in 24 hours.

This was more downloads by any song over a week in the last six months.

Industry analysts are suggesting that it will hit 500,000 by the end of this week.

If so, it will be the biggest selling single since Adele’s Hello moved 653,000 downloads in its second week (ending Nov. 5, 2015), following its 1.11 million debut.

Shake It Off, the lead single from her 1989 album, had 544,000 downloads in its first week in August 2014. The album moved 1.287 million in its first seven days, and automatically became the biggest selling record of 2014

All indications are that Look What You Made Me Do will easily debut in the Digital Song chart and probably edge Despacito off the top spot on the across-the-board Hot 100.

Already at #1 on the US iTunes sales chart Look What You Made Me Do was selling about 14x as fast as the chart’s #2 song, Demi Lovato’s Tell Me You Love Me.

The gap is the largest ever recorded for the iTunes chart.

Swift’s biggest selling single so far in America has been Love Story with 5.8 million downloads, followed by I Knew You Were Trouble with 5 million and Shake It Off with 4.9 million.

The lyric video for Look What You Made Me Do already broke the record for most watched lyric video within 24 hours, generating 19 million views on YouTube in that time.

It broke the old record of 9 million by Something Just Like This from The Chainsmokers featuring Coldplay.

By late last night, Swift’s number was just over 30 million.

There has also been some confusion as to why ‘90s British band Right Said Fred of 1991’s I’m Too Sexy get songwriting credits on the track.

The band’s Richard Fairbrass, Fred Fairbrass and Rob Manzoli are listed as songwriters alongside Swift and Jack Antonoff.

That’s because the single’s chorus “Ooh, look what you made me do” is very similar to “I’m too sexy for my shirt”

Swift’s people had approached the Right Said Fred brothers before the song was released to say they were aware of a similarity.

The band gave her permission and she in turn, acknowledged their ready cooperation.

When the song was released, the brothers tweeted, “Thank you Taylor Swift, what a marvellous reinvention!”