Drake is breaking more records with the release of More Life. In the week following its March 18 release, the album’s songs are estimated to have been streamed 384.8 million times according to Billboard, breaking the record set by Drake’s previous album, Views. Launching with 505,000 album unit sales in total and debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, More Life is easily the biggest new album of 2017 so far and could stand to maintain that title barring any surprise major releases.
More Life didn’t perform as well in traditional album sales, however, with less than half of the units sold accounted for under that metric—a clear reflection of recent industry trends. (This refers to digital downloads only; physical retailers are not yet carrying the album.) More Life is currently second to Ed Sheeran’s Divide in digital sales for 2017, which bowed with more than 300,000 copies sold and is far behind Drake’s own Views, which exceeded 800,000 in its debut. In fact, overall, Views launched with a little more than a million units sold—combining digital sales and streaming—which is nearly double the total of More Life’s reported haul.
Nonetheless, More Life is another huge success for Drake, who has made a habit of shattering music records lately. To close out 2016, he tied Lil Wayne’s Hot 100 record and has shown no signs of slowing down in the months since.
