Drake's latest album, VIEWS, hasn't been among the most well-received projects of the year by Internet critics, but sales-wise, it's murdering the competition. Released at the end of April, VIEWS is about to enter its ninth consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. With its ninth week at No. 1, VIEWS now ranks third on the list of hip-hop albums that have spent the most weeks at the top of the chart.
VIEWS has now surpassed Eminem's 2000 album The Marshall Mathers LP, which spent eight weeks at No. 1. It still has a long way to go if VIEWS is to catch the two hip-hop albums that have achieved more time at No. 1: Vanilla Ice's album To the Extreme -- with 16 weeks in 1990 and 1991 -- and MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt Em -- with 21 weeks in 1990.
The extension of his streak has earned Drake the most weeks at No. 1 by a males artist in over 10 years. The last album to spend exactly nine weeks at No. 1 was Usher's 2004 album Confessions, though it wasn't able to rack up nine in a row like Drake has now done. VIEWS has achieved the longest streak of consecutive weeks at the top since Adele's 21, which ruled the chart for 10 weeks in a row in 2012.
The latest Billboard 200 chart, on which Drake goes No. 1 for the ninth straight week, will be unveiled on Wednesday, July 6, a day later than usual due to Independence Day. The upcoming chart is for the week ending July 16, and it tracks the album sales that occurred during the week ending June 30. During that week, VIEWS sold the equivalent of 110,000 albums, with the majority of those (67,000) being attributed to streaming. The remaining 25,000 count as traditional album sales. No. 2 on the July 16-dated chart is another April album, Beyonce's Lemonade, which sold 48,000 equivalent units.
When will the reign end?
[via]