Drake’s newest album has set a record for most one-day streams for an album on Apple Music.
According to a new report from The Verge, Drake‘s hotly-anticipated double-sided release, Scorpion, is putting global streaming numbers to bed, racking up 170 million plays on Apple Music in just its first 24 hours: a new all-time record. The unprecedented feat nearly doubled Drake’s More Life numbers on the service last year, which garnered 89.9 million plays within the same timeframe.
Elsewhere, on Spotify, Scorpion was averaging an upwards of 10 million streams per hour, clocking in at 132 million for the day on the platform. Between the two streaming giants, totals are estimated to be over 300 million first day streams.
Late Sunday, a rep for Amazon confirmed that that Scorpion had more first-day streams than any other album on Amazon Music Unlimited, breaking a record previously held by Justin Timberlake’s Man of the Woods.
There’s a not-so-secret reason as to why Drake is performing so well, though: both Apple and Spotify pulled out all the stops to promote Scorpion. Apple Music featured him prominently, added Siri responses to Drake-related questions (such as “What’s Drake’s nickname?”) and created a make-your-own-cover-art website.
Spotify, meanwhile, went even further by inserting into numerous playlists, including unexpected ones like Afternoon Acoustic and Ambient Chill. If you used Spotify on the weekend of June 29th, you almost certainly saw some reference to Toronto’s best-known rap export.
On top of total streaming dominance, Scorpion already qualified for platinum certification before it was even released, coasting on the success of the album’s early singles: “God’s Plan,” “Nice For What,” and “I’m Upset,” which was paired with a nostalgia-laden video hearkening back to the rapper-singer’s Degrassi days.
The album is expected to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
