Canadian Rapper Drake released his latest album, Scorpion, on June 29th and it’s already broken a number of music industry streaming records.
Apple Music tweeted out on June 30th that the album has garnered over 170 million streams. This is the most single day streams ever on any streaming service. Drake’s More Life playlist previously held Apple Music’s single day album streaming record with 89.9 million streams.
According to SpotifyCharts, the MC was able to round up another 132 million streams on Spotify. He smashed Post Malone’s previous streaming record on Spotify of 78 million that was set with the artists’ album Beerbongs and Bentleys album earlier this year.
Between Spotify and Apple Music, Drake gathered over 300 million streams in a single day.
Drizzy isn’t playing. #ScorpionSZN going strong @Drake ?? pic.twitter.com/tS0tMFT2cS
— Spotify (@Spotify) June 29, 2018
It’s worth noting that the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) has changed its streaming music rules to include music streams as album sales. The latest RIAA rules consider 1,500 song/video streams as a ten-track download, which also counts as one full album sale.
Drake has been somewhat of a pioneer when it comes to controlling his streaming numbers. He seems to know exactly how to structure an album to make sure it gets the most streams possible.
Views, his 2016 album, is packed with 20 songs, which helped it gather additional streams. Drake even included the smash hit Hotline Bling on Views, despite the fact that the song came out almost a year before the album’s release. This added millions of streams to the album right away.
The artist’s follow up, More Life, is also longer than Views, which has resulted in it racking up streams as well. Drake’s latest album is his longest yet with a grand total of 25 tracks. This includes the song ‘God’s Plan,’ which was released as part of an extended play called Scary Hours back in January.
#Scorpion x Apple Music
The most streams in a single day, on any streaming service. @Drake pic.twitter.com/8yhC0ztYI5— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) June 30, 2018
The RIAA rules state that 10 song downloads can count as one Album sale. Since Scorpion is a 25 tracks long, two-disc affair, it could stand to reason that it’s already doing double damage simply because of the record’s sheer size. We’ve reached out to the RIAA to clarify this number and will update the story when we hear back.
The artist also has a strong album promotion team. This year he took over Spotify by putting a picture of himself on every single playlist, which resulted in some backlash. On Apple Music Drake’s marketing team also released a Scorpion Album cover generator.
Drake seems to be a master at gaming the current music industry climate. It’s going to be interesting to see if more artists add bloat to their albums in hopes of amassing streaming numbers.
Source: PitchFork, Apple Music, Spotify Charts
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