The first week sales numbers for Drake's latest album VIEWS have only just begun to roll in and remain completely unofficial at this point. Judging from the text messages that the Toronto rapper is receiving however, the final, net result could end up being huge. Drake was at an event in his hometown last night where he got onstage, pulled his phone out, held it up in the air, and revealed that "I got a text message that we sold, like, 630,000 some records in one night."
That is a mind-blowing figure, something that only someone like Adele seemed capable of selling anymore. Frankly, Drake's cited number is very early and should be taken with a grain of salt, but if true, VIEWS could go on to having a truly historic first week, probably even dethroning Beyoncé's album LEMONADE from the top spot on the charts.
That monumental figure was almost certainly inflated by some recent rule changes made by the RIAA in terms of how they count sales. In a major shift in policy, that organization now factors in streaming performances for songs that were released before an album drops. Essentially that means Drake already racked up hundreds of millions of streams that count toward VIEWS overall sales tally with songs like "Hotline Bling," "Pop Style," and "One Dance" months and months before the album actually came out.
He'll also have physical copies of the album to help out his sales figures, but unfortunately not until next week. According to Amazon's pre-order listing, physical copies of VIEWS are due out on May 6.
