Drake’s ‘Views’ takes tenth week atop Billboard 200 chart

By Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Canadian R&B singer Drake reclaimed the top spot on the weekly U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart on Monday for a 10th week, joining a small group of artists to have achieved the same feat in recent years.

Drake’s “Views” album sold another 18,000 albums and 161,000 songs and was streamed more than 86 million times in the past week, totaling 117,000 overall album units, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

“Views” is only the 10th album to clock 10 weeks, consecutive or non-consecutive, at No. 1 on the album chart in the past 20 years, according to Billboard.

The album’s sales have been driven predominately by streams from online music platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music.

The Billboard 200 album chart tallies units from album sales, song sales (10 songs equal one album) and streaming activity (1,500 streams equal one album).

Other artists to achieve 10 weeks at the top include Adele with her blockbuster 2011 album hit “21,” which spent 24 non-consecutive weeks at the top of the chart, as well as the soundtracks to 1998’s “Titanic” and 2014’s “Frozen.”

“Views” was pushed to No. 2 last week when Blink 182 took the top spot on the album chart with their latest record “California.” The alt-rockers’ album dropped to No. 3 this week on the chart.

Other new entries on the top ten of the Billboard 200 album chart this week includes rapper Schoolboy Q at No. 2 with “Blank Face LP,” rockers Chevelle at No. 8 with “North Corridor” and alt-rock band Switchfoot at No. 10 with “Where the Light Shines Through.”

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Andrew Hay)