Drake's 'More Life' rules Billboard 200 for second straight week
Meanwhile, The Weeknd, Rick Ross and Trey Songz cling on to the top 10.
He went off in the ’16, so give him ’17. Like the confident boast delivered on “Can’t Have Everything,” Drake is very much living the “give me ’17” line in real time thanks to More Life, his latest unshakeable album.
Drake’s ‘More Life’: All the record-breaking stats (so far)
After tying Eminem and Kanye West last week for second-most No. 1 albums, Drake’s More Life once again sits in the penthouse of the Billboard 200 with another 225,000 units sold in its second week. In addition to ruling the chart for a second straight week, the rapper also set another new streaming record. As Billboard reports, traditional albums sales equaled 43,000 units, while the streaming equivalent album (SEA) counts for the album totaled 169,000 units. The latter total is the second largest streaming week ever for an album since More Life‘s debut.
The playlist-style effort, which arrived last week (March 18), earned 505,000 equivalent album units in its first week, earning the title for biggest selling album of 2017 (so far). Besides adding more accolades under his name, the big narrative behind Drake’s More Life is the streaming numbers, which finds him shattering records back and forth. He already set the record for most streams on Apple Music and Spotify. It also set a streaming record for the largest number of SEA units generated in a single week by an album with the total 257,000.
With ‘More Life,’ Drake cements status as king of the streaming era
Over on the rest of the Billboard 200, Drake’s closest competition came from Ed Sheeran’s Divide, which trailed behind More Life with 98,000 units. Elsewhere, Trey Songz’ Tremaine debuts at No. 3 with 67,000 units (45,000 in traditional sales). This marks the singer’s fifth top 10 album since 2014’s Trigga. Meanwhile, Rick Ross’ acclaimed ninth studio effort Rather You Than Me appears at No. 8, while Future’s eponymous album clings to No. 9 and The Weeknd’s Starboy rounds out the top 10 with 36,000 additional units.