Drake first announced his fourth studio album “Views From the 6” nearly two years ago.
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Despite a 10 percent drop from last week, Drake’s numbers more than doubled his closest competition, with his 110,788 total album equivalent units (a statistic that tallies streams, album sales and single sales) towering over Beyoncé’s 47,598 total for the #2 Lemonade. Views now holds the record for the third most weeks at #1 by a Hip Hop album on the Billboard 200 charts, beating out Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP, released in May 2000. Will Views finally top the Billboard charts record?
Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP album”, which was released in 2000, stayed at number 1 for eight weeks straight. Drake’s only competition now is Vanilla Ice’s To the Extreme and MC Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, which clocked 16 and 21 weeks at number one, respectively. Another 13 weeks will reveal its true potential.
Drake also became the first male artist since Billy Ray Cyrus in 1992 to spend nine straight weeks atop the Billboard 200.
According to Billboard.com, Views earned 111,000 equivalent album units in the week ending June 30. But this latest accomplishment means that Drake has now tied Michael Jackson for what Billboard calls “the longest-ever simultaneous domination of the two rankings by a male artist”, with Jackson likely to be surpassed this month. Its nine-week run is the longest consecutive span for an album since Adele’s 21 ruled for ten weeks in a row back in 2012.
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Drake exists in a much different atmosphere, one in which album sales are a sideshow to many fans.
