Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 this week, ending a decade-long streak of debuting atop the charts.
The project was topped by Kenny Chesney's new album, Here and Now. Drake’s project sold 223,000 equivalent album units. 201,000 were from streams. The rapper did not capitalize on any merchandise/album bundles, nor a concert ticket/album bundle. There were also no options to purchase a physical copy of the album. Drake's previous project Care Package was released in the same fashion.
Chesney's album secured 233,000 equivalent album units. Here and Now was consumed in an opposite manner than Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes. Chesney's work saw 222,000 in album sales and only 10,000 streaming units.
Drake spoke about his decision to release Dark Lane Demo Tapes, during an episode of Young Money Radio, with Lil Wayne: "We pieced a lot of those songs together and I put a few new joints on there, but really it was just instead of dropping a single right now," he said. "It's an interesting time for us all as musicians to figure out how this works and what people need. And I just felt like people would appreciate maybe a body of something to listen to as opposed to just one isolated song."
[Via]