First streaming-exclusive album breaks top 10 of Billboard 200

Chance the Rapper Coloring bookA streaming-only album has landed on the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for the first time. The work is Chance the Rapper’s new project Coloring Book, which was released on May 13 as an Apple Music exclusive. It has debuted at No. 8 on the top 200 chart with 38,000 equivalent album units.

There are a handful of recent releases that have also performed well on the charts with a heavy proportion of support from streaming, such as Drake’s Views and Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo (which charted with a performance of 99.93% streams). But this is an impressive milestone for Coloring Book, especially given the ongoing interest in those artists and their work.

The Billboard 200 chart rankings are based on traditional album sales, track equivalent albums, and streaming equivalent albums. With the company’s equation, 1,500 streams counts as one album unit.

Anna Washenko