Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo is officially the first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 where more than half of its units were generated by streaming equivalent albums.
After six weeks of withholding its numbers from Nielsen Music and insisting it would never be for sale, Pablo was released in its entirety on April 1 to streaming services, and, finally, as a $20 download via KanyeWest.com, clearing the way for its debut on the Billboard charts.
And sure enough, with over 90,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending April 7 — an impressive feat for an album that has been semi-available on Tidal for six weeks and was illegally downloaded a reported half-million-plus times, it’s officially the first artist to have an album go #1 with a number based entirely on streaming from the major outlets.
The previous high mark for streams at No. 1 was notched just three weeks ago, on the April 2-dated chart, when Rihanna’s Anti returned to No. 1, with 31.25 percent of its total units (54,000) derived from streams.
Industry sources suggest that of its total for the week, over 20,000 units are in traditional album sales, from KanyeWest.com, Tidal, and ticket/album offers with West’s Yeezy Season 3 fashion show at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 11 and its simultaneous live stream movie theater event.
That’s a change from earlier this week, when insiders insisted that Pablo’s sales numbers would be withheld from Nielsen Music, leaving the album to rely solely on streaming numbers in its first week of eligibility on the charts.
While it was unclear at press time what, or who, changed West’s mind in favor of a wide release for the album, sources murmur it was Scooter Braun, who officially joined longtime confidant Izzy Zivkovic as West’s co-manager on March 31 after weeks of talks. If true, it’s likely that the streaming success of Braun’s client Justin Bieber, who broke Spotify’s record for most streams for an album in a debut week with 205 million global streams for November’s Purpose, at least played a role in the decision.
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