Records are made to be broken and Drake’s wielding a sledgehammer.
In the sixty-three years of Billboard Hot 100 history, no one has ever claimed nine of ten spots on the Top 10. That is, until today. Drake has become the first artist in Billboard history to achieve this, and the first since The Beatles to secure the entire top five. That means that Drake also breaks a fifty-seven-year record, set by the legendary group in 1964.
Drake, Lord of the Charts
It’s time to talk some numbers.
At No. 1 is Drake’s “Way 2 Sexy” featuring Future and Young Thug. It’s the third time that Young Thug has made it to the top spot, and the first time for Future. To date, it has some 67.3 million streams, 7.7 million in airplay listens, and has sold 7,000 units. It’s Drake’s fifth song to debut at No. 1, following “God’s Plan”, “Nice for What”, “Toosie Slide”, and “What’s Next”.
Taking the No. 2-5 spots are “Girls Want Girls”, “Fair Trade”, “Champagne Poetry” and “Knife Talk”. Between the four of them, they have some 205.4 million streams as of today.
The No. 6 spot goes to fellow Canadian superstar Justin Bieber, with his hit with The Kid LAROI, “Stay”.
In the No. 7-10 slots, Drake finds “In the Bible”, “Papi’s Home”, “TSU” and “Love All”. These last have gotten some 160.2 million streams, bringing Drake’s total stream count in the Top 10 to a whopping 365.6 million streams. These nine songs on the Top 10 bring Drake’s total single count on the Top 10 to 54. This makes him the top in this category, outshining Madonna, The Beatles, and Rhianna.
But what about the rest of the record? Where does it stand?
Launching to No. 1 on the charts, Certified Lover Boy racked up some 743.6 million streams, with 613,000 album units earned. It fell just short of Taylor Swift’s Folklore, which managed to snag some 846,000 album units earned. The other eleven songs on the album found their way onto the Billboard charts. Every single song on the album has charted in the Top 40 range. This brings Drake’s total in the Top 40 range to 143 records, and 258 entries on the Top 100 altogether.
Destroyer of records
In addition to his absolute obliteration of the charts, Drake can look back on some truly amazing feats. From 2015-2017, Drake was the most-streamed artist of all time on Spotify, getting 7.6 billion streams. Hypothetically, every single person on Earth at that time listened to him at least once. In May of 2017, Drake took home thirteen microphones from the Billboard Music Awards, beating Adele’s record by one. To date, he holds 27 BMAs. In 2019, he got into the Guinness Book with the most time spent on the US singles chart (multiple singles). He can proudly say that he has spent 431 weeks, some eight years and 88 days, on the Billboard Hot 100.
Garrett C. Owen
