Drake’s ‘Views’ Bumps Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ Off Top Of Album Chart

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, after all the clamoring last week about blockbuster sales and streams of Views, that Drake‘s latest album has become his sixth consecutive #1 on the Billboard 200. The final numbers, when all was said and done: 1.04 equivalent album units, 852,000 of which were traditional album sales. That far surpasses the year’s previous best debut, last week’s showing by Beyonce‘s Lemonade, which racked up 653,000 equivalent album units  and 485,000 sales.

Let’s not forget when you see Views get awarded its inevitable Platinum status, however, that we are living in a time where the RIAA now figures streams, not just sales, into certifications, and that last year’s “Hotline Bling” — a song with reportedly over 400 Spotify streams worldwide and 700 million YouTube plays — was tacked onto the album. How that affects an album like Views is, as Stereogum points out, like this: 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale. How’s that for pop style?

Speaking of Lemonade, Bey’s latest visual album drops to #2 after selling another 196,000 copies (321,000 units), while the late Prince keeps the #3 and #4 spots occupied with the Purple Rain soundtrack and 2001 compilation (and former chart-topper) The Very Best Of Prince, respectively.

See how the rest of this week’s action within the Top 10 played out below.

The Top 10 of the Billboard 200:

1. Drake, Views *new* *1 week*
2. Beyonce, Lemonade
3. Prince, Purple Rain
4. Prince, The Very Best Of Prince
5. Rihanna, Anti
6. Rob Zombie, Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration… *new*
7. Various, NOW 58 *new*
8. Chris Stapleton, Traveller
9. Justin Bieber, Purpose
10. Adele, 25

Any surprise moves on the chart this week for you? Let us know your thoughts below, or by hitting us up on Twitter and Facebook.