CHART STORY: DRAKE & DIERKS RULE

Drake’s streaming has been consistently explosive, and Views (YMCMB/Republic) is once again the #1 album on the HITS Sales Plus Streaming (SPS) Chart with another 149k in its fifth week out. For those keeping score, his SPS total is now at 1.93m. On the Album Sales Chart, Capitol Nashville’s Dierks Bentley bows at #1 with 89k for Black. Bentley debuts with 103k to land at #2 at SPS, however.

The next biggest bow belongs to SYCO/Epic’s Fifth Harmony, who debuts with 78k at #4 on the SPS Chart and 55k at #3, when it comes to album sales alone.

Queen Beyoncé‘s Lemonade (Columbia) pulls in another 83k at SPS to round out the Top 3, and 58k of that is purely album sales, bringing it to #2 on that chart. Meanwhile, as we at HITS prepare to move office buildings, we’ve been downing excessive amounts of lemonade to stay hydrated as we pack; and by “lemonade,” we mean scotch.

As for the remaining debuts in the SPS Top 15, Flume’s Skin (Mom+Pop) lands at #8 and Kevin Gates’ Murder for Hire 2 (Bread Winners Association) appears at #9, while Thrice’s To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere (Vagrant) and The Monkees’ Good Times! (Rhino) land at #12 and #15, respectively. The latter includes new songs by fans like Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and Oasis’ Noel Gallagher.

Meanwhile, powered by big radio play and a $5.99 sale at iTunes, G-Eazy’s When It’s Dark Out (RCA) leaps #30-16 with a +60% spike.

And Chance the Rapper’s independently released Coloring Book holds strong, breaking back into the Top 15, following the set’s wide release to streaming services, as its exclusivity period with Apple ends. This is particularly noteworthy, considering that the album is not available to purchase, so its success is entirely driven by streaming.

On a related note, we have no idea what has driven our success (or how we’re still in business). We also enjoy coloring books.

Streeting this week are albums from Columbia Nashville’s Maren Morris, Warner Bros.’ Tegan and Sara, Cult’s The Strokes, Warner Bros. Nashville’s Dan + Shay and Paul Simon, along with Republic’s Lonely Island ST for the Adam Samberg-led film, Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping.