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Once again, new Drake album sets records and highlights the impact of a streaming economy

Drake continues to exert dominance over the music landscape with a new album that has broken records and demonstrated how extensively streaming has changed the role of longstanding industry standards and expectations. Scorpion dropped on June 29, and it quickly racked up enough streams to crack multiple records. The double album now holds the single-day streaming records for Spotify and Apple Music. Continue Reading

More records broken by Drake. Is the singles chart broken too?

Drake has a new single, and after less than a week, it has broken multiple streaming records. His track “God’s Plan” now holds the title for Spotify’s and Apple Music’s one-day streaming records. A single breaking records on that scale would have been a major deal a few years back. Now, it’s more surprising if a new release from Drake doesn’t meet those milestones. That trend indicates that it’s time to change how we’re using chart rankings. Continue Reading

Nielsen 2016 report: “Music consumption is at an all-time high”

“Music consumption is at an all-time high,” according to Nielsen Music’s 2016 U.S. Year-End Report. The analysis reveals that 2016 was another year with strong streaming growth and some compelling trends for albums. The entire music industry posted a 3.1% increase in overall volume, with total album consumption reaching 560.7 million units. Continue Reading

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Drake, streams, and charts: Views’ success reinforces need for consistent metrics

Drake has been a huge force in the U.S. music scene this year with the release of new album, Views. Music Ally made some calculations and determined that the Canadian rapper’s latest album has hit some impressive milestones on both Spotify and YouTube. The numbers this album is putting up are yet another reminder of how critical it is for charts to consistently account for streaming data in assessing an album’s success. Continue Reading