"Scorpion" is not a very good album, for the same reasons behind its success. Thanks to the Recording Industry Association of America’s streaming rules, which recently changed to factor streams into an album's sales figures and gold/platinum certifications, that formula means that "Scorpion" was platinum-eligible before it was even released, and is well on its way to record-breaking numbers. With 25 songs on "Scorpion," Drake has doubled down on the release strategy that enabled his poorly reviewed 2016 album "Views" to nevertheless break virtually every streaming record at the time: an extra-long tracklist that includes all of his successful recent singles.
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Despite the fact that "Scorpion" actually had a lower first-week equivalent sales total than his last full album, 2016's “Views" ( 1.04 million for "Views" compared to 732,000 for "Scorpion"), Drake's new album broke global first-week streaming records, becoming the fastest-ever album to reach one billion streams worldwide.
Spotify's Drake-wallpapering job - the streaming service's first-ever artist takeover - foreshadowed a record-breaking streaming week for the rapper. “ Grime Shutdown,” “ Fresh Gospel,” “ Indie Party,” “ Ambient Chill,” “ Bachata” and, hilariously, “ Best of British,” all categories that could be only tangentially tied to the artist, suddenly became Drake playlists, as part of a massive ad campaign for the rapper’s new album, "Scorpion." As part of the streaming service’s first-ever total artist takeover, visitors to the Browse homepage were greeted with a massive grid of Drake faces, on the cover of nearly every one of the page’s playlists. A funny thing happened to Spotify late last month.