Ariana Grande's 'Thank U, Next' Breaks Apple Music Record for Most-Streamed Pop Album in First 24 Hours

[MacRumors]

Ariana Grande's latest album "Thank U, Next" has set a few Apple Music records since its debut on Friday, February 8. The music streaming service told Billboard that "Thank U, Next" saw the highest day 1 streams ever for a pop album on Apple Music.

This also makes "Thank U, Next" the biggest debut for any female artist in any genre on Apple Music within the first 24 hours of release. Ariana began releasing singles for the album last year, starting with the title track "Thank U, Next" and followed by "Imagine" and "7 Rings." "Thank U, Next" released about six months after Grande's previous album, Sweetener.

Other recent Apple Music records include Shawn Mendes' self-titled third studio album becoming the most-streamed pop album of 2018, and Cardi B's "Invasion of Privacy" setting a new record for first-week streams by a female artist, beating Taylor Swift's "Reputation." "Thank U, Next" appears to be on the path to battling both of those albums for the record of first-week streams by a female artist on Apple Music.

According to the latest numbers, Apple Music now has over 50 million paid subscribers around the world. This update came during Apple's latest earnings call and was the first update on Apple Music subscriber numbers since May 2018, when Apple Music had 50 million paying and trial subscribers combined. In comparison, Spotify now has 96 million paid global subscribers.

Article Link: Ariana Grande's 'Thank U, Next' Breaks Apple Music Record for Most-Streamed Pop Album in First 24 Hours

 

[willmtaylor]

And we wonder why our society is in the crappy state that it’s in.

</curmudgeonrant>

EDIT:
Disclaimer, the post above is meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek. That is all.

 

[dumastudetto]

Only Apple Music can do this.

Great album btw and its obvious the Apple Music edition has been mastered for Apple technologies it sounds amazing on HomePod.

 

[jezbd1997]

Only Apple Music can do this.

Great album btw and its obvious the Apple Music edition has been mastered for Apple technologies it sounds amazing on HomePod.

It's broken records elsewhere not just Apple Music
And iTunes is still only 256kbps

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Maybe that is just because HomePod is a good speaker? But it's not specially mastered for Apple devices. It sounds the same on everything

Only Apple Music can do this.

Great album btw and its obvious the Apple Music edition has been mastered for Apple technologies it sounds amazing on HomePod.

 

[rmoliv]

I don’t gain anything from that so I couldn’t care less. Good for Apple and Ariana I guess.

 

[69Mustang]

And we wonder why our society is in the crappy state that it’s in.

</curmudgeonrant>

said by every previous generation

 

[TheMBC]

Am I crazy or is that not what the Billboard source says? It says it was the best 24 hour debut for a female artist ever… not just pop album.

 

[willmtaylor]

said by every previous generation

“This degenerate, Elvis, gyrating his hips with his rocking and rolling!”

 

[69Mustang]

“This degenerate Elvis shaking his hips with his rock and roll!”

Dee Snyder is going to make all of our boys wear makeup.

 

[lunarworks]

said by every previous generation

This Britney Spears is corrupting our youth!

 

[TMRJIJ]

Nice song but I don’t know if I can really thank any of my exes.
They were either selfish, egotistical, or emotionally abusive. About half of them say I’m cold hearted for cutting them out of my life but I don’t how anyone can be happy after being with the such terrible human beings who couldn’t see the pain they cause in those relationships.

 

[dumastudetto]

Maybe that is just because HomePod is a good speaker? But it's not specially mastered for Apple devices. It sounds the same on everything

Apple does have music mastered for Apple devices. They call it Mastered for iTunes. I think this album has it.

 

[willmtaylor]

This Britney Spears is corrupting our youth!

Sadly, I’m less concerned about the corruption and more about the lack of artistic merit, but I suppose if we’re talking about it, then it’s doing it’s job?

 

[burgman]

Sadly, I’m less concerned about the corruption and more about the lack of artistic merit, but I suppose if we’re talking about it, then it’s doing it’s job?

Lack of artistic merit as compared to what? AutoTune and other software have made many "singers" today, I don't know if she is one,so what? If a integrity test in the entertainment industry is required it would have died a very early death.

 

[78Bandit]

Not unexpected as Apple Music subscribers continue to increase. A more accurate measure of success would be the percentage of subscribers who streamed the album or the percentage of song streams to the total of all Apple Music streams.

Basically until streaming music subscriptions stabilize you will see constant records set as the subscriber base increases. Those records don't necessarily accurately reflect popularity unless they are measured against the total population of songs.

 

[willmtaylor]

Lack of artistic merit as compared to what? AutoTune and other software have made many "singers" today, I don't know if she is one,so what? If a integrity test in the entertainment industry is required it would have died a very early death.

Perhaps I just miss ugly singers whose wardrobe and social media presence was less important than their lyrics and musical breadth. #getoffmylawn

 

[1050792]

And we wonder why our society is in the crappy state that it’s in.

</curmudgeonrant>

Our society is in a crappy state because people stream music?

 

[willmtaylor]

Our society is in a crappy state because people stream music?

Probably more correlation than causation, but I’m sure it doesn’t help.

I thought my </curmudgeonrant> indicator was sufficient to infer the tongue-in-cheek nature of my statement, but I guess not. Apologies.

 

[scrapesleon]

Mostly kids listening

 

[madKIR]

The music industry is so bizarre nowadays: releasing albums only 6 months apart from each other. I guess, now it's all about making money while they still remember/care about you. Millennials have a very short attention/memory span haha

 

[kupkakez]

It's a great album. I'm surprised she came out with another one so quickly after Sweetener, also a great one.

 

[jgdeschamps]

Apple does have music mastered for Apple devices. They call it Mastered for iTunes. I think this album has it.

That only means it's normalized (certain audio peak levels in a volume range are brought to a specific level, normally just below -3dB or 0dB) in a consistent way relative to other music available for streaming. All streaming services have their own parameters. It doesn't mean its actually mastered in a different way for iTunes, or that it sounds better. You just perceive it louder or quieter than on other platforms or media. There is even an iTunes plugin delivered by Apple for you to "master" -actually compressing your original audio file to AAC- under those normalization parameters for Apple Music or the iTunes Store.
Mastering audio is more complex than normalizing or compressing to a certain format.

 

[lunarworks]

Perhaps I just miss ugly singers whose wardrobe and social media presence was less important than their lyrics and musical breadth. #getoffmylawn

Guess you forget carefully orchestrated MTV appearances and decades of teeny bopper magazines.

The music industry is so bizarre nowadays: releasing albums only 6 months apart from each other. I guess, now it's all about making money while they still remember/care about you. Millennials have a very short attention/memory span haha

In 1979 Frank Zappa released 5 albums in a single year.

 

[jgdeschamps]

Sadly, I’m less concerned about the corruption and more about the lack of artistic merit, but I suppose if we’re talking about it, then it’s doing it’s job?

It really depends on what aspect of the arts and engineering included in a music production you are referring to.
You might not like the lyrics or the public perception of a song or performer, but many pop songs actually have complex synth and rhythm programming, a handful of audio mixing tricks, lots of top-of-the-line equipment and musicians involved... I'm not a fan of reggaeton due to the lyrics, but production on most international released tracks you'll find a lot of hard work involved that takes skilled artist talent.