Drake's 'Views' Album Becomes First to Reach Over 1 Billion Streams on Apple Music

Canadian rapper Drake's hit album "Views" has become the first album on Apple Music to be streamed more than 1 billion times, according to an award Drake shared on Instagram this morning.

drakefirstalbum1billionstreams
Drake received the news from Apple CEO Tim Cook, iTunes chief Eddy Cue, and Larry Jackson, who heads up original content, all of whom Drake posed with for a second photo that was also uploaded to his Instagram account.

Released on April 29, "Views" was an Apple Music exclusive for one week before it became available on other streaming music services like Spotify and it sold more than 1 million copies during its five-day exclusivity window. Apple and Drake have been working together since Apple Music launched in June of 2015, with Drake offering a Beats 1 radio show and Apple sponsoring his "Summer Sixteen" tour.

🍏🍎 Thank you to everyone. OVO Sound to the 🌎 @applemusic

A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on


Just this morning, Drake debuted a 23-minute short called "Please Forgive Me," which is designed to be a visual companion to the "Views" album. The video, which is also an Apple Music exclusive, follows Drake and his girlfriend as they attempt to make off with a wealthy man's fortune. The songs "One Dance," "Controlla," "9," Views," and more are used in the short.

Top Rated Comments

lunarworks Avatar
99 months ago
But the commenters here told me no one cares about Drake.

I don't know who to believe!
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheAppleFairy Avatar
99 months ago
What is Drake?
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sciencesque Avatar
99 months ago
1,000,000,000 streams / 15,000,000 Apple music subscribers = an average of 67 streams per user over the course of 149 days since the release of Views. Yeah, right...
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dilster3k Avatar
99 months ago
This is silly...
They pretty much helped him with the production of the music / videos, etc. and he was a spokesperson when Apple Music was announced. His music and album was plastered in every playlist, chart, recommendation, radio and cramped into any possible corner of Apple Music...
Unfair & meaningless statistic IMO.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
truthertech Avatar
99 months ago
This is silly...
They pretty much helped him with the production of the music / videos, etc. and he was a spokesperson when Apple Music was announced. His music and album was plastered in every playlist, chart, recommendation, radio and cramped into any possible corner of Apple Music...
Unfair & meaningless statistic IMO.
I agree, this is Unfair!!! A billion isn't such a big number. It doesn't mean what it used to. Heck, that's only one stream for every phone Apple has sold. He will never get close to a trillion-- I guarantee it. I don't find it meaningful at all. People probably don't even like Drake, they only listen to him because Apple makes them, and Apple makes them stream his songs!!! This isn't fair at all!! Time for Tim to go; this reeks of desperation.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
UltimateSyn Avatar
99 months ago
This is silly...
They pretty much helped him with the production of the music / videos, etc. and he was a spokesperson when Apple Music was announced. His music and album was plastered in every playlist, chart, recommendation, radio and cramped into any possible corner of Apple Music...
Unfair & meaningless statistic IMO.
Helped him with the production of the music? Huh? This was executive produced by 40, just as all of Drake's albums have been. There are fewer collaborators on this album than pretty much any prior Drake album.

You think showing up awkwardly on stage at an Apple Keynote for 10 minutes gave him an unfair advantage to get one billion streams?

His music and album are in every playlist because the album sold 1.2M first week, has a #1 and #2 single, and is what the people want to hear.

Give credit where credit is due.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature 1

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
macbook pro purple february

Best Buy Introduces Record Low Prices on Apple's M3 MacBook Pro for Members

Thursday April 25, 2024 7:41 am PDT by
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...