Drake and 21 Savage’s ‘Her Loss’ beats Taylor Swift to top US and UK album charts
Drake and 21 Savage‘s ‘Her Loss’ has knocked Taylor Swift off the top of the album charts in both the US and UK.
The pair’s first collaborative album came out earlier this month (November 4) and becomes 21 Savage’s fist ever UK Number One album, knocking Taylor Swift’s new album ‘Midnights’ off the top spot.
Swift had been Number One for two weeks, with ‘Midnights’ becoming the fastest-selling album of the year so far in the UK. In the US meanwhile, she became the first act in history to land 10 tracks in Billboard‘s Hot 100 song chart.
‘Midnights’ is now Number Two in the UK charts with First Aid Kit’s new album ‘Palomino’ behind.
In the States, meanwhile, ‘Her Loss’ hit 500 million streams and sold the equivalent of 400,000 units in its first week, also pushing ‘Midnights’ off the top spot.
Since the release of the album, Drake has said that he believes Billboard “fixed” the charts following the success of his album ‘Scorpion’, in 2018.
At the time, the Canadian rapper’s album broke multiple streaming records and he became the first artist to reach over 50 billion streams across music platforms. It also topped the Billboard 200.
Explaining his theory to DJ Akademiks, Drake said that the move was done in an effort to boost other artists. “I mean, at the end of the day, ever since we were gunning off the charts from ‘Scorpion’, they fixed the charts anyway,” the rapper claimed. “So it is what it is. You know, they had to give other people a fair shot.”
Prior to the week that ‘Scorpion’ was released, Billboard counted 1,500 streams equal to a single album sale. From the next week, they implemented two different ratios to determine the value of a stream, meaning there was a disparity in the value between a song streamed by a “paying subscriber” to a platform like Apple Music and Spotify versus that of a “free user”.
Billboard is yet to comment on the rapper’s claims and NME has contacted Billboard for comment.
Earlier this week, Vogue announced they were suing Drake and 21 Savage after sharing a fake cover of the magazine as part of their promotional campaign for their new album.
Reviewing ‘Her Loss’, NME wrote: “Despite some great beats and some heavy bars, ‘Her Loss’ is underwhelming. The whining misogyny laced throughout the record is a symptom of a wider issue: this album is essentially the sonic imprint of a massively bloated ego.
“It’s yet more evidence that Drake’s art is suffering under the strain of his obsession with churning out as much music as is physically possible. And while 21 doesn’t have the same problem, both halves of the duo are responsible for an album that had the potential to be a classic, and missed.”
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Will Richards
NME
