At long last, we finally received two of the year’s most anticipated projects and on the same day no less. Its safe to say that the landing of Pusha T’s DAYTONA and A$AP Rocky’s TESTING albums were nothing short of headline-making arrivals with Push’s ongoing feud with Drake, that scorching “Infrared” track, a response from Drake with “Duppy Freestyle,” and an attached invoice taking up most of the conversation.
The projections for both efforts are here, and according to Hits Daily Double, the drama may not be enough for DAYTONA to top the debut of TESTING. While the former is expected to push out somewhere between 65,000 to 75,000 units in its opening week with 18,000-23,000 accounting for pure album sales, the latter is predicted to move between 80,000 to 100,000 in its bow with 15,000-18,000 album sales.
While DAYTONA has been on most people’s minds, it all comes down to basic numbers. In an age where lengthy track lists, double and even triple albums are dominating in an effort to capitalize off the loopholes presented in on-demand streaming, King Push kept his project down to a mere seven tracks while Rocky’s outing comes out with 15 songs. All it means is that Rocky is bound to get more streams because there’s just more to listen to.
Nonetheless, Push is pretty committed to brief track lists as indicated in his most recent talk with Entertainment Weekly. “Seven songs is the easiest thing,” he told the publication. “I may never make another album over seven songs again in my life.”
Unfortunately for hip-hop fans, neither album is expected to debut at No. 1 as Shawn Mendes also dropped his self-titled album on Friday (May 25) and is expected to move 135,000 to 155,000 units with 95,000-115,000 accounting for pure album sales.