DRAKE: 2 MILLION
IN VIEW?

With YMCMB/Republic’s Drake hitting on Friday, it’s anticipated the megastar will have a massive first week, with some insiders asking if Views could debut with two million.

The set will be an Apple exclusive for the first seven days of release, with physical product expected as soon as the exclusive lifts. You’ll recall that Cupertino handed Drizzy a $19m check a while back, and the artist was on hand for the launch of Apple Music. The tech behemoth, which is sponsoring Drake’s forthcoming Summer Sixteen trek (its first “presented” tour), is believed to be very much in the driver’s seat of the album rollout.

Meanwhile, Drake single “One Dance” is one of three new tracks streamable on Spotify, and it’s been atop most of the service’s charts ever since, garnering some 33m global streams in the last week. “One Dance” has also sold briskly, withstanding assaults on the iTunes leaderboard by Prince and Beyoncé.

The rollout strategy is very similar to Interscope's windowing on Gwen Stefani and using Spotify to let the world know about new music from The 1975. Is this the new UMG game plan?