Drake’s ‘Views’ No. 1 For Ninth Week on Billboard 200 Chart

“Views” pulls ahead of Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP” to solely claim the third-most weeks at No. 1 by a hip-hop album.

For a ninth week in a row, Drake’s Views holds at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Views pulls ahead of Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP (with eight weeks at No. 1) to solely claim the third-most weeks at No. 1 by a hip-hop album. Ahead of Views are Vanilla Ice’s To the Extreme (16 weeks at No. 1 in 1990 and 1991) and MC Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em (21 weeks in 1990).

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Views earned 111,000 equivalent album units in the week ending June 30, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 25,000 were in traditional album sales. The bulk of Views units were driven by streaming equivalent album units (67,000), owed to the album’s popularity on streaming services.

Views debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and has yet to leave the top slot.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new July 16-dated chart (where Views is No. 1 for a ninth week) will be posted in full to Billboard’s websites on Wednesday, July 6. (One day later than usual, owed to the Independence Day holiday in the U.S. on Monday, July 4.)

Views also has spent the most weeks atop the chart for an album by a man in over 10 years. The last album by a man to spend at least nine weeks at No. 1 was Usher’s Confessions, which racked up a total of nine nonconsecutive frames at in the penthouse in 2004.

Views has the longest consecutive rule atop the chart since Adele’s 21 spent 10 weeks in a row at No. 1 between the Jan. 14 and March 17, 2012-dated charts.

Impressively, in the last 10 years, the only albums to spend at least nine weeks at No. 1 are Views, two albums by Adele (25, with 10 weeks, and 21 with 24), two albums by Taylor Swift (Fearless and 1989, each with 11) and the Frozen soundtrack (13).

Drake’s ‘Views’ Spends Eighth Week in a Row at No. 1 on Billboard 200 Chart

Further, the last time an album by a man tallied nine consecutive weeks at No. 1 was way back in 1992, when Billy Ray Cyrus’ Some Gave All accumulated 17 weeks at No. 1 — all in a row.

At No. 2 on the new Billboard 200 is Beyonce’s Lemonade, which rises one slot with 48,000 units (down 3 percent). Since the album debuted at No. 1 — 10 weeks ago — it has never left the top four position of the chart.

The Avett Brothers earn their highest charting album ever, as True Sadness debuts at No. 3 with 46,000 units (43,000 in traditional album sales). That beats the No. 4 debut and peak of The Carpenter, which launched at No. 4 with a 98,000 sales start. The act’s last album, Magpie and the Dandelion, bowed at No. 5 with 58,000 copies sold in its first week.

Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface climbs 8-4 — its highest rank since it was last at No. 4 on the Feb. 13-dated chart — with 38,000 units (up 5 percent). The album tallied a 14 percent increase in traditional album sales (to 15,000) and a 3 percent uptick in SEA.

Rihanna’s Anti ascends 7-5 with 37,000 units (down 1 percent) while the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton dips 4-6 with 36,000 units (down 26 percent).

As Hamilton spends its third week in the top 10, it becomes the first cast recording to spend at least three weeks in the top 10 since 1969. That year, the original Broadway cast recording of Hair wrapped a 28-week run in the top 10 (including 13 weeks at No. 1) on Oct. 18, 1969. In the last 50 years, only three cast albums have even reached the top 10: Hair, Hamilton and The Book of Mormon. The latter spent two weeks in the top 10.

As expected, Adele’s 25 jumps back into the top 10 (rising 12-7) following its debut on streaming services (on June 24). The album earned 33,000 units for the week (up 16 percent), with streaming equivalent units comprising 10,000 of that figure (a gain of 82 percent). Until this week, 25’s streaming units were drawn from plays of the album’s three singles (“Hello,” “When We Were Young” and “Send My Love [To Your New Lover]”) which had been the album’s only songs available on on-demand streaming services.

This is 25’s highest rank on the chart since the April 16-dated list, when it was No. 5.

The various artists compilation Epic AF jumps 16-8 with 28,000 units (up 26 percent) — supported only by track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. (The album itself is not available for sale.) The set rises thanks to the popularity of its tracks like Kent Jones’ “Don’t Mind” and DJ Khaled’s “I Got the Keys” and “For Free.” Presently, the only album those songs are available on is the Epic AF release. Jones’ single is from his 2015 mixtape Tours (which is not commercially available), while the two DJ Khaled cuts are selections from his upcoming album Major Key, which is due for release on July 29.

Rounding out the top 10 on is Red Hot Chili Peppers’ The Getaway, which slides 2-9 (28,000 units; down 76 percent) and Meghan Trainor’s Thank You, maintaining at No. 10 (27,000 units; down 22 percent).

Source: billboard.com