Kanye West’s Donda was Apple Music’s biggest album debut this year — until Drake snapped that record 48 hours later.
According to stats just shared with Digital Music News, Drake easily topped Kanye West’s one-day album debut on Apple Music. On Wednesday, Apple Music reported that Kanye’s Donda was its platform’s biggest album debut of the year, with more than 60 million streams. But that record has been snapped by Drake’s Certified Lover Boy just two days later, according to the platform.
At this stage, it’s unclear how many streams Drake is racking up. As of Friday evening (September 3rd), Apple Music only confirmed to Digital Music News that Drake had topped Kanye’s one-day total. Apple further noted that Drake surpassed Kanye’s total well before the full 24-hour period, suggesting an easy victory.
“Drake’s sixth studio album, ‘Certified Lover Boy,’ has already broke Apple Music’s 2021 record for the most-streamed album in a single day,” an Apple Music rep emailed DMN early in the afternoon (Pacific time). “The album is also already Apple Music’s most-streamed album in 24 hours this year.”
Incidentally, Donda was the third-largest album debut in Apple Music’s history in terms of total streams, which means that Drake’s CLB will place second or better on Apple Music’s all-time list.
Over to Spotify, and Kanye was also setting some serious records. Similar to Apple Music, Donda was Spotify’s most-streamed album debut of 2021, and the second-highest debut in Spotify’s history with more than 100 million streams. Whether Drake topped those rankings remains to be seen, though we’re expecting data from Spotify this evening or early tomorrow morning.
When it comes to anticipation and hype, Kanye’s easily got Drake beat.
We’ve lost track of how many album preview concerts and missed deadlines Kanye blew through before actually releasing Donda. At. one stage, Kanye was even taking up residence in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Arena to finish the album. All of that is classic Kanye, whose endless publicity-stunting is now routine. But the heavy run-up to Donda didn’t give Kanye an edge over Drake, suggesting that fans are more interested in substance than sizzle.
In terms of guest appearances, CLB is absolutely stacked. The 21-track album features cameos from Lil Baby, Lil Durk, Giveon, Jay-Z, Travis Scott, Future, Young Thug, Yebba, 21 Savage, Project Pat, Tems, Ty Dolla Sign, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, and Kid Cudi. Donda was equally stuffed with guest celebs and appearances, including Pusha T, Don Toliver, Lil Baby, The Weeknd, Travis Scott, Lil Yachty, Playboi Carti, Lil Durk, Kid Cudi, Young Thug, Chris Brown, Roddy Ricch, Westside Gunn, Jadakiss, Jay Electronica, Sheek Louch, Styles P, Pop Smoke, DaBaby, Marilyn Manson, and Jay-Z.
We’ll update with more detailed figures when they’re available.