‘Views’ From the Top: The Chart Records Set by Drake’s Album (So Far)
With Drake topping so many Billboard charts, let's recap his uncommon domination.
On what charts isn’t Drake No. 1?
With the hip-hop superstar leading so many Billboard rankings, let’s look at his continued run of extraordinary chart success. Here are nine key achievements, one for each week that his album Views has led the Billboard 200.
1. Drake leads the latest Billboard Artist 100, Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 charts (dated July 16) simultaneously for a record-breaking eighth total week (having first tripled up on the May 21 charts). He passes Taylor Swift, who previously dominated the three tallies at the same time for seven weeks. (The Artist 100, which measures artist activity across Billboard‘s most influential charts, began in July 2014.)
2. Drake’s album Views rules the Billboard 200 for a ninth week, encompassing its entire run on the chart. The set is the biggest-selling album released in 2016 (1.3 million copies sold in the U.S., according to Nielsen Music, dating to its May release). Views is also the biggest-selling hip-hop album of 2016. It’s the second-largest-selling album overall of the year, trailing only Adele‘s 25 (1.4 million).
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3. Views has spent the most weeks atop the Billboard 200 for an album by a solo male in more than 10 years. The last album by a male soloist to spend at least nine weeks at No. 1 was Usher‘s Confessions, which racked nine (nonconsecutive) frames in the penthouse in 2004.
Drake Continues at No. 1 on Artist 100, Hot 100 & Billboard 200 Charts
4. At nine straight weeks, Views boasts the longest consecutive rule atop the Billboard 200 since Adele’s 21 spent 10 weeks in a row at No. 1 in January-March 2012. Meanwhile, Views is the first album by a solo male to tally at least nine consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since 1992. That year, Billy Ray Cyrus‘ debut LP Some Gave All accumulated 17 weeks at No. 1, all in a row. (How did Cyrus follow that success? Seven weeks after the set’s last week at No. 1, he became father to newborn daughter Destiny Hope “Miley” Cyrus.)
5. Views claims the third-most total weeks at No. 1 ever on the Billboard 200 for a hip-hop album. It has pulled ahead of Eminem‘s The Marshall Mathers LP, which led for eight weeks in 2000. Ahead of Views in the category are only MC Hammer‘s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em (21 weeks, 1990) and Vanilla Ice‘s To the Extreme (16 weeks, 1990-91).
Drake’s ‘Views’ No. 1 For Ninth Week on Billboard 200 Chart
6. Views has drawn more than 1 billion on-demand audio streams for its tracks in the U.S., becoming one of only seven albums to total such a stratospheric streaming sum. Through the week ending June 30, it has accumulated 1.65 billion streams. (The count includes clicks registered by songs released before Views arrived, including the smash “Hotline Bling,” which hit its first Billboard chart nine months before Views was released.)
7. Views hit “One Dance” (Drake’s first Hot 100 No. 1 as a lead artist; the song features WizKid and Kyla) has led the Hot 100 for eight total weeks, the past seven weeks concurrently with Views topping the Billboard 200. With that continued double domination, Drake ties for the longest consecutive control of both the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 simultaneously among solo males: Michael Jackson also led both lists concurrently for seven straight weeks in 1983 with “Billie Jean” and Thriller, respectively. Among all artists, Drake links the longest consecutive coronations on the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 simultaneously since Whitney Houston led both for a record-tying 12 straight weeks in 1992-93 with “I Will Always Love You” and parent album The Bodyguard (with the soundtrack credited as a Houston album), respectively. The Beatles first topped both charts simultaneously for 12 straight weeks in 1964.
Drake’s ‘One Dance’ No. 1 on Hot 100 for Eighth Week
8. The week that Views debuted atop the Billboard 200 (May 21), Drake made history on the Hot 100, as he placed a record-breaking 20 titles on the Hot 100 that frame, the most that any act has charted on the ranking in one week. He passed the 17 songs that Justin Bieber logged on the Dec. 5, 2015, Hot 100. (Bieber’s sum bested the 14 each that the Beatles logged on April 11, 1964, and that (guess who?) Drake earned on the March 7 and Oct. 17 charts in 2015.)
9. Summer ’16: Given all of Drake’s chart honors, it’s no surprise that “One Dance” is the front-runner in the race for song of the summer. A third of the way through the season, the track has led Billboard‘s Songs of the Summer chart in each of the list’s first five weeks.