Drake chases Frozen chart milestone in the US

Drake’s Views has spent its 12^th (non-consecutive) week at #1 on the Billboard 200 after shifting a further 85,000 equivalent album units last week.

Views, which was released at the end of April, has left behind Taylor Swift’s 1989 (eleven weeks) and now aims at the 13 weeks achieved in 2014 by the Frozen soundtrack. Whether Views stays on a further week remains to be seen: last week’s figures were 5% down from the week before, according to Nielsen Music.

In any case, fellow rap star Gucci is snapping at his feet with Everybody Looking, his first album in five years. The Gucci album sold 68,000 equivalent albums to debut at #2. It is his highest-charting debut of his career. His previous best was the #4 debut of 2010’s The Appeal: Georgia’s Most Wanted.

The Billboard chart is based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).

According to Billboard, Views has the most weeks’ rule at #1 for an album by an artist (as opposed to a soundtrack) since Adele’s 21 hung on for 24 weeks in 2011 and 2012. The last male artist to spend more than 12 weeks at #1 was Billy Ray Cyrus, with Some Gave All album (17 weeks) in 1992. 

In the past 25 years, only nine albums have spent 12 or more weeks at #1: 

Artist, Title -- Weeks at #1

Adele, 21 -- 24 (2011-2012)

Whitney Houston/Soundtrack, The Bodyguard -- 20 (1992-1993) 

Garth Brooks, Ropin’ The Wind -- 18 (1991-1992)

Billy Ray Cyrus, Some Gave All -- 17 (1992)

Soundtrack, Titanic -- 16 (1998)

Soundtrack, Frozen -- 13 (2014)

Drake, Views -- 12 (2016) 

Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill -- 12 (1995-1996)

Santana, Supernatural -- 12 (1999-2000)