On May 13, Chance the Rapper dropped his much anticipated "third mixtape," Coloring Book, to near-universal acclaim. As it was an unconventional release, made exclusively available for streaming via Apple Music (and not for purchase), it was unclear how the project would fare on the Billboard 200 albums chart. As streams count toward album sales these days, though, early reports projected that Coloring Book would land in the top 10. The first-week numbers of Coloring Book are now in, and Billboard has confirmed that the project will debut at No. 8 on the albums chart for the week ending in June 4.
Coloring Book was reportedly streamed 57.3 million times via Apple Music in its first week, which is equivalent to 38,000 album units. With those numbers, Coloring Book has officially become the first streaming-only release to ever chart in the top 10. Earlier this year, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo earned the No. 1 spot off streams alone, but technically, it wasn't an streaming-exclusive release, as Kanye made Pablo available for download through his website. Still, Kanye's streaming numbers are considerably larger than Chance's, as Pablo made its No. 1 debut with 99 million streams for the week of April 1 to April 7 -- and that was a month and a half after the album's initial release as a Tidal exclusive. According to Tidal, Pablo was streamed 250 million times in its first 10 days of availability.
It should be noted that Coloring Book was available on a few popular mixtape platforms for several hours, and none of those downloads were factored into Billboard's sales figures. Coloring Book will remain an Apple Music exclusive until this Friday, May 27, when it will move to other streaming platforms. No plans to make the album available for sale have been announced.
