Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo Reaches No. 1 in Streaming Milestone
After finally coming out on all major non-TIDAL streaming services on March 31, Kanye West‘s The Life of Pablo is the No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart. As Billboard notes, it’s the first No. 1 album to reach the charts “where more than half of its units were generated by streaming equivalent albums.” Streams accounted for 70 percent of Pablo‘s overall units. In addition to streaming data, Def Jam confirmed that the limited number of official album downloads also count toward the album’s chart position (from KanyeWest.com, TIDAL, and Madison Square Garden ticket holders). The album didn’t chart upon its initial release in February—TIDAL didn’t report the album’s streaming numbers to Nielsen Music. Before the album’s chart placement was officially announced, West celebrated in a series of tweets:
Thank you to everybody who made The Life of Pablo the number 1 album in the world!!!
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 9, 2016
I’m so happy that you guys like the music… I’m working on the tour designs now…
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 9, 2016
I also wanted to point out that it’s the first album to go number 1 off of streaming!!!
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 9, 2016
As Billboard notes, The Life of Pablo has charted the second-most overall streaming units at the No. 1 position behind Justin Bieber’s Purpose. Rihanna’s Anti was the last album to hold the record for streaming percentage at the No. 1 position—31.3 percent of that album’s units were generated from streaming on the April 2 chart.
Read “Kanye West Is Still Changing The Life of Pablo. Does It Matter?” on the Pitch.
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