Having recently been confirmed as the highest seller of 2014, Taylor Swift has begun the new year as she ended the last, with 1989 holding on to Number 1 in the US Billboard 200 for another week.

The 24 year old’s fifth album sold 172,000 physical copies in the sales week ending on January 4th, brought up to a total of 244,000 by individual song downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift's 1989 spends an eighth week on top of the US Billboard 200

In a quiet week for albums, there were no new entries in the Top 10. Nicki Minaj’s The Pinkprint remained at number 2 for a third week in a row with 83,600 units, while British star Ed Sheeran’s X climbed to number 3 with 83,400 units. Only one album, the soundtrack for Into The Woods, saw a sales increase on the previous week (57,000), enough to get it to number 8.

The Billboard chart rules were altered in November last year, taking into account song streams and individual song sales in order to reflect the way in which pop music is now consumed. 10 individual song sales from an album are counted as one unit sold, and 1,500 album streams equal one album unit.

Though Swift’s figures are hindered by her ongoing embargo with Spotify, the lack of streaming figures still didn’t prevent 1989 from trouncing the competition last year. It sold 3.7 million copies since its release in November, with only the soundtrack to Disney’s Frozen coming anywhere near it.

To sell nearly a quarter of a million copies of an already massive album after ten weeks on sale demonstrates that 1989 is going to have plenty of shelf-life. However, it’s got a way to go before it matches her second album Fearless, which spent thirteen weeks at the spot spanning 2008 and 2009.

However, in the singles charts, Swift’s reign at the top was brought to an end. ‘Blank Space’, the second major hit from 1989, was removed from the summit by the returning Mark Ronson with his smash hit ‘Uptown Funk!’. Irish sensation Hozier remained at number 3 with ‘Take Me To Church’.

More: Taylor Swift beats Frozen to best-selling album of 2014