Canadian rapper Drake shattered records with his new album “Scorpion,” which became the first to score one billion streams in its first week and also debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard 200 album charts. The previous record of almost 700 million streams was set in May by Post Malone’s “beerbongs & Bentleys.”
The Billboard 200 album chart tallies units from album sales, song sales (10 songs equal one album) and streaming activity (1,500 streams equal one album).
“Scorpion” also gave Drake seven songs in the top 10 Billboard Hot 100 singles charts, Billboard said on Monday. That beat a record of five simultaneous songs by The Beatles in 1964 when the British band was at the height of its fame.
“Scorpion” made headlines on its June 29 release because Drake confirmed long-standing rumours that he had fathered a son, but he did not name the mother.
Streaming services in 2017 became the recording industry’s biggest single revenue source, overtaking sales of physical albums and digital downloads. Rap officially surpassed rock in 2017 as the biggest music genre in the United States.