Taylor Swift tops Record Store Day sales

Taylor Swift’s “Elizabeth Taylor” 7-inch was the clearest breakout title of Record Store Day 2026, according to post-event reports from retailers and collectors. (billboard.com) (discogs.com) Billboard reported on April 28 that stores from Rough Trade in Manhattan to Licorice Pizza in Studio City called this year one of their strongest Record Store Day events. The event itself took place on Saturday, April 18. (billboard.com) (recordstoreday.com) Across U.S. stores, Billboard said top-moving exclusives included releases by Swift, KATSEYE, Bruno Mars, Charli xcx, Carly Rae Jepsen, Pink Floyd, Laufey and Bruce Springsteen. In New York, its separate city report said early lines formed across Brooklyn and Queens, with Swift and a Grateful Dead box set among the biggest local sellers. (billboard.com 1) (billboard.com 2) Discogs’ weekend data pointed to an even sharper winner. The marketplace said Swift’s single was added to user collections more times than the next two most-collected releases combined. (discogs.com) On the sales side, Discogs said “Elizabeth Taylor” moved 430% more copies over the weekend than Pink Floyd’s “Live From the Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26, 1975,” its second most-picked-up title. Discogs also said resale prices stayed close to shelf price, suggesting supply was tighter than normal but not instantly exhausted. (discogs.com) Record Store Day is built around exclusive, limited-run releases sold first through independent shops. The official site says the event began in 2008 after a 2007 meeting of record-store owners and now spans nearly 1,400 participating stores in the United States, with thousands more internationally. (recordstoreday.com) This year’s broader sales picture was also slightly larger than last year’s. Billboard, citing Luminate, said U.S. physical album sales reached 2.276 million units in the week ending April 23, up from 2.241 million in the comparable 2025 week. (billboard.com) Retailers were still selling leftover stock online after the in-store event. Rough Trade’s Record Store Day page listed remaining U.S. inventory going live at 8 a.m. Eastern on April 19, the day after the store queues ended. (roughtrade.com) The result was a familiar Record Store Day pattern with a clearer-than-usual center: long lines, broad store traffic, and one Taylor Swift single that kept showing up at the top of the pile. (billboard.com) (discogs.com)