Drake received a lot of recognition for joining Eminem, 50 Cent, and Lil Wayne as rappers to push over 1 million units of an album in one week. However, some observers are questioning if the OVO front man’s VIEWS should really be listed as a milli seller.
Forbes recently reported that “Hotline Bling” earned over 400 million Spotify streams worldwide and nearly 700 million plays on YouTube. The publication asserts the addition of the Top 5 single onVIEWS has impacted the album’s RIAA totals.
As the music industry moves from a purchase/download model to focusing more on streaming, the concept of album sales and platinum certifications has changed to reflect the current market. Both the RIAA and Billboard adjusted the method of calculating their respective album awards/charts because of the rise of streaming.
“For a while we’ve recognized that we would need to put streaming in the mix as consumption changed — but we needed to do it carefully. So we started with the easiest one to change, the singles awards,” said RIAA chairman/CEO Cary Shermann about the rule changes. “We watched that and made sure it worked out, and then after about a year, we started on the albums. While looking at how to implement for the album, we went through an elaborate process, getting feedback from the industry, and going through the same data analysis that we did for the single.”
Drake is not the only superstar to benefit from the shifting landscape. Rihanna’s Anti was certified platinum by the RIAA after the album was downloaded for free over 1 million times in January. WhenThe Life Of Pablo took the top spot in April, Kanye West became the first act to land at #1 on theBillboard 200 album chart off mostly streams.
The numbers for Drake’s most recent collection show the Toronto rhymer is still one of the most popular music artists in the world. Besides securing the highest sales week of Drizzy’s career, VIEWShas also been credited for breaking the streaming record with over 245 million streams in its first week of availability.
With files from All Hip-Hop
