As chart royalty goes, few can rival Beyonce and Drake in 2016.
Music’s reigning King and Queen have garnered gargantuan sales with their respective albums – ‘VIEWS’ and ‘Lemonade.’
Interestingly, both have managed to do so with digital only releases. Bey opted for a TIDAL streaming launch, before serving up her LP on all digital retailers. Similarly, Drizzy teamed with Apple Music – making his effort available there exclusively for one week.
Now, with both LP’s being made available physically yesterday, will they receive a sales lift?
Find out what the predictions are looking like below…
Per Hits Daily Double, each album is on-course to receive a 50,000 boost from physical sales.
With that factored in, here’s how the numbers are set to stack up next week (*SPS refers to “Sales Plus Streaming”):
Drake (YMCMB/Republic) 160-180k pure sales, 290-315k SPS
Beyoncé (Columbia) 120-130k pure sales, 210-235k SPS
Keith Urban (Capitol Nashville) 75-80k, 80-85k
Cole Swindell (Warner Music Nashville) 55-60k, 57-62k
Andy Black (Lava/Republic) 18-20k, 20-23k
Mike Posner (Island) 11-13k, 24-27k
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The numbers paint an interesting picture.
Most notable is the fact that both artists are slaying.
Bey pulling 130k in her third week is incredible. Her 2nd week added 196k, while her debut was 485k. Putting SPS aside, to rack up 810,000 in pure sales in such a small window of time is mind-blowing. Especially in today’s climate. Note also how the week-to-week % drop is decreasing – pointing heavily to the likelihood of high numbers remaining consistent for weeks (if not months) to come.
As for Drake, he remains undeniable and arguably undefeatable. The final numbers for his debut week are still incoming, but suggestion is that he’ll land over 800k in pure sales and most definitely over 1 million in SPS. With these second week predictions, another run atop of the Billboard 200 is almost a guaranteed.
A collective slay.