Even though it’s only out on Apple Music, Views has been posting big numbers. In its first day alone, the album netted an equivalent of more than 600,000 sales. Apple said that in its first five days, the album generated more than 250 million streams globally.
The artists exploring this windowing approach to distribution will likely need to experiment to figure out the butter zone: the length of time that nets them sales while not withholding so long that listeners lose interest or turn to piracy. The numbers will show what the right call is for Views.