Drake racks up half a billion streams in US

Drake’s new album Views has racked up more than half-a-billion streams in the United States since its April 29 release. 

It topped streaming numbers in each of the three weeks that it’s been on sale. In its first week, Views was streamed 245 million times - when it was only available on Apple Music. In Week 2, it generated 141 million streams. Last week it had clocked up 185 million streams when it was released to other services. That brought the tally of 572 million in the US alone. 

Views easily trumped the 115 million streams that Beyonce’s Lemonade pulled on its release in April. As reported in TMN, Drake also overtook Justin Bieber to become the most-streamed artist on Spotify.

Views debuted at #1 with more than 1 million units in sales, the biggest opening week so far in 2016. Last week a combined sales of the album and tracks was 234,000 – staying on top for a third week and managing to keep Lemonade, which shifted 128,000 units, at second spot.

The 29-year-old LA-based Canadian also scooped his first US chart topping single with One Dance. In the UK, he was the first act to have both a single and album at #1 at the same time, with One Dance at top spot for its sixth week. 

He has become the first artist in the 21^st century to twice top the US and UK album and singles charts at the same time.

Drake goes on tour in the US with Future, Roy Woods and DVSN between July and October.