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There’s nothing Taylor Swift does “Better Than Revenge.”
The 34-year-old hitmaker is dominating the Billboard 200 album chart, and on Sunday, August 11 she also managed to take down one of her biggest rivals in the process. The Tortured Poets Department didn’t just hit its 14th week in the No.1 spot — it also blocked Kanye West‘s latest album from taking it.
Vultures 2, with Ty Dolla $ign, debuted at No. 2 on the chart, thanks to TTPD moving the 142,000 equivalent album units necessary to retain the top spot, per Billboard. Vultures 2 came in second with 107,000 equivalent album units, making it the 13th album of Ye’s to reach the Top 2.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during ‘Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour’ at Olympiastadion on July 27, 2024 in Munich, Germany. In August 2024, her ‘The Tortured Poet’s Department’ album blocked Kanye West’s ‘Vultures 2’ from getting the top Billboard spot.
Thomas Niedermueller/TAS24/Getty Images
Of course, Ye’s albums have hit No. 1 eleven times previously — with his and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 1 taking the Top spot in February — so it definitely seems like a win for Swift. It’s especially relevant, seeing as one of West’s new songs on the album name drops both Swift and her boyfriend Travis Kelce.
In the song “Lifestyle,” featuring Lil Wayne, the “Lollipop” artist raps, “I twist my Taylor spliffs tight at the end like Travis Kelce.” Though the couple has yet to address the mention, Kelce’s dad sure had something to say. “Mental illness on full display,” Ed Kelce posted on Facebook on Thursday, August 8, along with a repost of a Daily Mail article on the new lyrics.
The last time West referenced Swift in his lyrics it led to a rehashing of the pair’s longtime feud — which began back in 2009 when he stormed the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards to announce that Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” should have won over Swift’s “You Belong With Me.” On “Famous,” West rapped, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that b**ch famous.”
He then insisted Swift had approved the line, though the 2023 Time Person of the Year denied that. That prompted West’s then-wife Kim Kardashian to release an edited clip from Swift’s phone call with West, leading to what the Eras Tour singer dubbed a “career death.” Speaking in her Time cover story interview, Swift said, “Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me.”
This feud also led to the beloved Reputation album — a tour filled with snake imagery — as well as songs many fans believe to be about Kardashian, like, “Look What You Made Me Do,” “I Forgot That You Existed,” and, most recently, “thanK you aIMee.”