Earlier today, it was reported that Drake's "One Dance" reclaimed the top spot on Billboard's Hot 100. Unsurprisingly, his success also extends to the albums chart, as VIEWS currently sits at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in its second week (for the week of May 28). The most recent albums chart -- for the week ending June 4 -- is set to be revealed tomorrow (May 23), and Drake will surely take No. 1 again for the third week in a row. Though the chart isn't out yet, the latest VIEWS streaming numbers have been revealed, and once again, they're staggering.
In its first week, VIEWS attained 245 million streams, which beat the previous record of 115.2 million streams set by Beyonce's Lemonade for the week ending April 28. VIEWS experienced a 70 percent drop in sales and streams the next week, but its second-week streams still amounted to 141 million, toppling the first-week numbers of Beyonce. After two weeks, VIEWS was made available on streaming platforms outside of Apple Music, and thus, it has experienced a spike in streams for its third week, racking up another 186 million. This means that VIEWS has attained more streams than any other album in history in each of its three weeks of release; no other album has had a first-week performance that stands up to Drake's second-week or third-week numbers.
VIEWS has achieved a three-week streaming total of 572 million streams in the U.S. To provide some added perspective, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo was streamed a reported 400 million times in its first six weeks of availability, though it remained a Tidal exclusive during that entire time. About six weeks after its release, for the week of April 1 to April 7, when Pablo moved to other streaming platforms and thus became chart-eligible, it garnered 99 million streams and became the first album to ever reach No. 1 off streams alone.
