Drake's Views Goes Platinum in 6 Days!!

May 5, 2016
2 min read

Drake's album Views goes platinum within 6 days which is incredible in these times of leaks and people downloading albums for free. Republic Records reports that "VIEWS" is already platinum. It's only been available through iTunes and Apple Music.

A physical release will happen tomorrow (May 6), and will move to all streaming platforms on May 13. Drake's new album, VIEWS, was expected to do huge numbers because of the first day sales, and Republic Records, the label primarily responsible for the album's distribution, has now verified those predictions.

Republic is reporting that VIEWS has sold the equivalent (including streams) of 1.2 million copies in its first six days of release. Over a million of those sales came from the U.S. alone. Breakdowns of those numbers has not been published as of yet, but Republic has reported that VIEWS was streamed upwards of 250 million times, 200 million of those streams coming from the U.S.

Official certification from the RIAA still needs to occur, but if Republic's numbers are correct, then VIEWS will have achieved platinum status in less than a week. This is truly astonishing as all those streams are attributed to Apple Music exclusively. VIEWS has also been available in the iTunes store which is owned by Apple.

Tomorrow (May 6), VIEWS will see a physical release, and the digital version will now be added to other online retailers. Streaming-wise, it will stay tied to Apple Music until May 13, when it will move to Tidal, Spotify, and other platforms.

A Stereogum writer states the adding of “Hotline Bling” to the tracklist is partly why VIEWS is credited with 1.04 million equivalent album units (the LP totaled 852,000 in actual sales).

According to Michael Nelson, the hit single’s streaming numbers over the last 10 months played a big part in the final first week numbers for Drake’s fourth studio album which has inflated the LP’s status.

Nelson wrote:

The only reason Views “has crossed the 1 million mark in U.S. sales and nearly 1.2 million globally” is because of the final song on the album; a late inclusion called “Hotline Bling.” As you might recall, back in February, the RIAA changed its certification methodology to account for “streaming and download consumption patterns.” Per the RIAA’s new rules, “1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale.”