Drake accounted for one in every 60 on-demand streams in the U.S. last week, according to Billboard analysis of Luminate data. Already the most-streamed artist in the country, the hip-hop star boosted his numbers further with the surprise release of his seventh studio album, Honestly, Nevermind, on June 17.
Honestly, Nevermind — which tops this week’s Billboard 200 albums chart — alone accounted for about 1 of every 100 on-demand streams in the U.S. in the week ending June 23. Released by OVO Sound and Republic Records without pre-release singles, the 14-track album earned 251.7 million on-demand streams in its first week of release. That was 1.04% of the 24.2 billion on-demand streams from platforms such as Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music in the U.S. that week.
In terms of album equivalent units, Honestly, Nevermind accounted for 205,000 units — or 1.1% of total consumption — in its first week of release. (To measure equivalent units, Luminate converts track sales and streams into album units.) The album accounted for 2.9% of U.S. digital album sales and 0.5% of U.S. digital track sales in its first week of release (the album was not released in CD or vinyl LP formats).
Honestly, Nevermind added more popularity to the country’s most popular artist in terms of music consumption. Drake accounted for 1 in every 125 on-demand streams in 2021 and is on a similar pace for dominance this year. In 2020, through June 23, he had 1 of every 152 on-demand streams — and that’s likely to get a boost from the new material.
Drake’s ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ by the numbers
The first week’s data for U.S. sales and streams show Drake’s new album accounted for a sizable share of total music consumption.
Table with 2 columns and 4 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 4.
Albums w/TEA w/SEA 1.08%
Digital albums 2.93%
Digital tracks 0.51%
On-demand Streaming 1.04%
With the release of his new album, Drake fans streamed just as much old music while diving headfirst into his new release.
Across his entire catalog, Drake’s share of album equivalent units grew from 0.6% the week ending June 23 to 1.7% the week after releasing his new album. And Honestly, Nevermind streams only boosted fans’ streaming of other Drake tracks: The week before he dropped the new album, Drake had 149 million on-demand streams. Outside of Honestly, Nevermind, Drake’s catalog had 155 million on-demand streams last week — adding another 6 million streams on top of the new album’s 251.7 million.
A week earlier, BTS went about dominating the Billboard 200 differently. Proof, released June 10, topped the Billboard 200 with 315,000 album equivalent units — 1.7% of all album consumption, far surpassing the 1.1% share of Honestly, Nevermind. But Proof rode to No. 1 on the strength of fans’ purchases and was far weaker than Honestly, Nevermind in terms of streams. Whereas Honestly, Nevermind accounted for 0.5% of total album sales last week, Proof’s 266,000 first-week album sales represented 16.3% of the U.S. total. BTS fans also purchased 121,000 tracks from Proof in its first week — 3.9% of total track sales — while Honestly, Nevermind racked up just 16,000 track sales in its first week.
Drake dominates U.S. streaming by a wide margin so far in 2022. Through June 23, Drake had 4.16 billion on-demand streams, 37.3% more than YoungBoy Never Broke Again at No. 2 (with 3.37 billion) and 23.5% more than Taylor Swift at No. 3 (with 3.03 billion). Last week, all 14 tracks on Honestly, Nevermind were among the top 32 most-streamed audio tracks in the U.S. and the album accounted for half of the top 10.
