Drake's 'Scorpion' Breaks One-Week U.S. Streaming Record in Only Three Days

7/2/2018 by Keith Caulfield

Drake’s Scorpion has already smashed the U.S. one-week streaming record for an album -- in just three days.

According to industry sources, the set -- which was released June 29 via Young Money/Cash Money/Republic Records -- has tallied over 435 million on-demand audio streams for its 25 songs in the U.S. through July 1. That sum vaults past the previous record, earned by Post Malone’s beerbongs & bentleys, which earned 431.3 million streams for its songs in the week ending May 3, according to Nielsen Music. Notably, Post Malone’s set earned its total over a full seven days of tracking.

Forecasters expect that Scorpion could collect over 700 million streams in the U.S. by the end of the tracking week on July 5.

Scorpion is set to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated July 14) with perhaps over 700,000 in overall equivalent album units earned -- the biggest week for an album in 2018.

Scorpion's official first-week streaming sum — along with its overall consumption figure and album sales start — as collected and verified by Nielsen Music, is slated to be announced on Billboard's websites on July 8.

If Scorpion starts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, it will log Drake his eighth chart-topper in-a-row. All seven of his previous full-length albums have debuted at No. 1. His only chart entry to miss the top was his first release, the EP So Far Gone, which debuted and peaked at No. 6 in 2009.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multimetric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the July 14-dated Billboard 200 chart (where Drake could debut at No. 1) is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Sunday, July 8.

Scorpion’s arrival on the chart coincides with the list’s first week of employing an updated weighting formula for on-demand audio streams, giving greater emphasis to paid subscription streams.

Through the July 7-dated chart, one SEA unit equaled 1,500 on-demand audio streams across all streaming services that contributed to the chart. From July 14-onward -- on the Billboard 200 and all other album consumption charts -- one SEA unit will equal 1,250 paid subscription audio streams or 3,750 ad-supported streams.