Drake's New Album 'Views' Sells One Million Copies in Five Days Under Apple Exclusivity

[MacRumors]

Although Drake's newest album "Views" was only available on iTunes and Apple Music for one week, under the terms of the company's exclusivity deal with the artist, the album managed to sell more than one million copies in just five days, which The Wall Street Journal calls "a rare achievement in an age of rapid streaming growth and declining sales of downloads and CDs."

Most of those sales numbers -- 632,000 copies to be exact -- came within the first 24 hours of release, with the rest trickling over the one million mark in the subsequent days. The figures specifically target sales for the $13.99 iTunes copy of Views, but Apple Music showed some impressive streaming statistics for Drake's new album, as well.

In total, Views was streamed more than 250 million times worldwide, 200 million of which were inside the United States, suggesting Apple Music managed to get some of the artist's fans to sign up for the service beyond its current 13 million paid subscribers.

The results fly in the face of industry fears that paid streaming services might hasten the continuing decline of music sales, which have fallen by more than 60% in the past 15 years, according to data from Nielsen. While that could still eventually happen, plenty of fans purchased the $13.99 Drake album last week even though they could also access it immediately, along with some 30 million other tracks, by subscribing to Apple Music for $9.99 a month--or even just by signing up for a free trial.

As Drake's album launched on April 29, his record label's parent company, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, went to work keeping any traces of pirated songs and videos off of sites like YouTube. According to sources within the industry, the new trend of exclusivity deals between artists and streaming services like Apple Music and Tidal, has led to a renewed crackdown on pirated music. Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group alone has spent "millions of dollars a year" going through a similar process with other big releases.

Drake has been one of the headline artists representing Apple Music since it was first announced last year at WWDC. Since then, the singer has hosted 20 episodes of his own Beats 1 Radio show, OVO Sound, partnered with Apple Music to sponsor his Summer Sixteen tour, and had some of his songs featured in ads for the streaming music service.

Article Link: Drake's New Album 'Views' Sells One Million Copies in Five Days Under Apple Exclusivity

 

[newyorksole]

He deserves it. It's a good album. Took a couple listens for me to really like it.

 

[2010mini]

Good news for Apple. Shows people are still interested in purchasing music.

 

[maxsix]

Good news for Apple. Shows people are still interested in purchasing music.

Apple's very clever, they know where their money is best spent. By hitching their wagon to highly successful artists like Taylor Swift and Drake it makes Apple look relevant, contemporary and aware. With plenty of cash, the Cupertino Co has endless resiliency.

 

[LordQ]

One Dance and Controlla, nice songs.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

I was kind of surprised by the price tag, but it has 20 tracks.
[doublepost=1462800197][/doublepost]

One Dance and Controlla, nice songs.

Feel No Ways too.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, went to work keeping any traces of pirated songs and videos off of sites like YouTube. According to sources within the industry, the new trend of exclusivity deals between artists and streaming services like Apple Music and Tidal, has led to a renewed crackdown on pirated music. Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group alone has spent "millions of dollars a year" going through a similar process with other big releases.

This album had 1M sales. At $13.99/copy, that means the company got paid $9.8M, after Apple's cut. And they spent "millions" cracking down on piracy.

So the main reason music costs so much is because they want to invest so much money on keeping people from getting it for free.

If nobody pirated, how much less would they be able to charge?

Also, I find it hard to imagine anybody would bother pirating if they would just offer the album on Spotify which has a free tier.

 

[Jsameds]

If nobody pirated, how much less would they be able to charge?

Not much. Music has actually got a lot cheaper recently despite piracy shooting through the roof since the advent of the internet.

Margins are tight in the music industry, but let's assume for a second that they could charge $5 less, do you really think they would?

 

[Zirel]

This album had 1M sales. At $13.99/copy, that means the company got paid $9.8M, after Apple's cut. And they spent "millions" cracking down on piracy.

So the main reason music costs so much is because they want to invest so much money on keeping people from getting it for free.

If nobody pirated, how much less would they be able to charge?

Also, I find it hard to imagine anybody would bother pirating if they would just offer the album on Spotify which has a free tier.

People would still pirate.

Even Spotify has free tier, but on mobile, you don't chose which songs you listen. And people pirate the free version of Spotify to get what they want...

The money they spend taking down piracy is irrelevant.

 

[Mums]

Music is so incredibly bad now-a-days, people are happy with scraps.

 

[Jsameds]

Music is so incredibly bad now-a-days, people are happy with scraps.

^^ Every generation says this about the generation before.

 

[adamjackson]

I haven't even heard a song from this guy but Apple really seems to like him. Wasn't he at an event last year?

I won't get in the camp that his music is bad. Who am I to judge what the kids like. He made a lot of money this week though even if his cut of those sales was like 10%.

 

[bushido]

dat Taylor Swift impact

 

[Derekuda]

I can't believe people still buy music. Between my wife and I, we buy like 10 songs a year if that. And the majority of it we get free because amazon always gives us free music credit downloads.

 

[69Mustang]

^^ Every generation says this about the generation before.

This is so true. Little known fact: Cave paintings in Chauvet and Lascaux depict Paleolithic people complaining that Mesolithic music lacks the soul of the stuff they listened to as kids. Too much bass.

 

[Studioman]

Not much. Music has actually got a lot cheaper recently despite piracy shooting through the roof since the advent of the internet.

Margins are tight in the music industry, but let's assume for a second that they could charge $5 less, do you really think they would?

And why should they. They are in business to make a profit just like the businesses most people look to for a pay check. Most also have shareholders who demand the best return in their investment or they will take their funding elsewhere.

 

[Jsameds]

This is so true. Little known fact: Cave paintings in Chauvet and Lascaux depict Paleolithic people complaining that Mesolithic music lacks the soul of the stuff they listened to as kids. Too much bass.

Back when rock music was made with actual rocks ha

 

[TechZeke]

^^ Every generation says this about the generation before.

Not a Drake fan, but I pretty much stopped worrying about what people think of the music I listen to, nor about what other people listen to. I pretty much listen to every genre (including country and folk) except Metal and Rap anyway. In terms of modern pop, I personally like Carly Rae Jepsen. I don't like all of her songs, but her new EMOTION album is pretty darn good and I love her voice in-general.

 

[Studioman]

This album had 1M sales. At $13.99/copy, that means the company got paid $9.8M, after Apple's cut. And they spent "millions" cracking down on piracy.

So the main reason music costs so much is because they want to invest so much money on keeping people from getting it for free.

If nobody pirated, how much less would they be able to charge?

Also, I find it hard to imagine anybody would bother pirating if they would just offer the album on Spotify which has a free tier.

The point is, spotifys free tier pay pennies while costing artists and companies millions. In this case 10 million in just 5 days. If this album goes on to sell 10,000,000 copies world wide. That's over $100,000,000 in revenue. To put it into perspective. That's exactly half of what Spotify posted as a loss in 2014 because their free tier is unprofitable for even them. That figure is up from 97 million in 2013. Note that they stopped report sales numbers after this. Spotify only pays out based on the tier its on. The free tier accounted for just 9% of revenue while 70-75% of users were on it. That means that if they really have 30 million paying subscribers that there are 70 million downloading and listening while contributing 9 cents by watching adds. Many of these are people who were buying music before now the get it for free and the artist and companies loose sales and get .09 instead of 9.00 from that same transaction. The other side is paying customers get the shaft as well. They provided $1.183 billion in revenue to support the 70% freeloaders. Ads from this barely added up to 117 million. Remember they lost twice that.

 

[Mums]

^^ Every generation says this about the generation before.

Agreed. But this time we're right.

 

[ChrisA]

^^ Every generation says this about the generation before.

Not true. I teach in a high school and you can not believe the number of kids who have tee-shirts of bands from the 1960's, 70's and 80's. Lots of Beatles and Pink Floyd t-***** on any given day. I've never seen a kid with an Adel t-shirt.

Todays generation is looking back to the bater days of music that their parents know. and are listening to the current stuff too.

The reason we think the old music was better is because we can "cherry pick" the past. We only remember the one in 100 best bands and tracks and forget the junk.

Politicians do this to. They say "make America great again" but really what was it like back then? In the 50's women had a choice of getting married or living on poverty (the pay was much more un-even back then) and black people had to ride in the back of the bus or worse and they were drafting his and sending them to Vietnam to die by the tens of thousands and "for what purpose?" Not many people want to go back to those days except for the few good things they remember. Same with music most of the crud on the radio was just crud that we forgot about.

 

[TechZeke]

Agreed. But this time we're right.

You know, there is a lot of good music out there made today that aren't made by the big name artists like drake.

The reason we think the old music was better is because we can "cherry pick" the past. We only remember the one in 100 best bands and tracks and forget the junk.

Politicians do this to. They say "make America great again" but really what was it like back then? In the 50's women had a choice of getting married or living on poverty (the pay was much more un-even back then) and black people had to ride in the back of the bus or worse and they were drafting his and sending them to Vietnam to die by the tens of thousands and "for what purpose?" Not many people want to go back to those days except for the few good things they remember. Same with music most of the crud on the radio was just crud that we forgot about.

Exactly. If you are only basing modern music based off hearing Sorry by Justin Bieber on the radio, then you are ignoring all the great modern artist that are not well as known. There are great albums released all the time iTunes, but the older generation isn't exploring the new music section of iTunes to see all the great modern music that has come out, but don't hit top charts on KIIS FM.

P.S., there is no pay gap between men and women today. Its a debunked myth that when you take into account field, experience, education, hours worked, etc the "gap" disappears.

 

[Mums]

You know, there is a lot of good music out there made today that aren't made by the big name artists like drake.



Exactly. If you are only basing modern music based off hearing Sorry by Justin Bieber on the radio, then you are ignoring all the great modern artist that are not well as known. There are great albums released all the time iTunes, but the older generation isn't exploring the new music section of iTunes to see all the great modern music that has come out, but don't hit top charts on KIIS FM.

P.S., there is no pay gap between men and women today. Its a debunked myth that when you take into account field, experience, education, hours worked, etc the "gap" disappears.

Yes but it gets no promotion by The Machine, and I don't have enough time to try finding it.

 

[akadafni]

You know, there is a lot of good music out there made today that aren't made by the big name artists like drake.



Exactly. If you are only basing modern music based off hearing Sorry by Justin Bieber on the radio, then you are ignoring all the great modern artist that are not well as known. There are great albums released all the time iTunes, but the older generation isn't exploring the new music section of iTunes to see all the great modern music that has come out, but don't hit top charts on KIIS FM.

P.S., there is no pay gap between men and women today. Its a debunked myth that when you take into account field, experience, education, hours worked, etc the "gap" disappears.

Agreed. There is a lot of great modern music today. You just have to look for it. And it's not always on the radio. My Shazam app lets me discover new music if I'm watching tv, at the movies. Soundtracks are a great discovery tool because they include a bit of everything. That's how I discovered Glass Animals. Their song was on the Taken 3 soundtrack. I shazammed it at the movies (don't judge me). I don't rely on iTunes to discover new music, but I do rely on iTunes to buy music. When an artist says they like another artist I will check out the other artist to see if I like them as well. Sometimes checking out the iTunes Store for other country's is a good research tool as well. There are gems out there people.

 

[satchmo]

^^ Every generation says this about the generation before.

Could it be because there are only so many chords? All the good combinations have been done already.