At this point, I think the “Drake doesn’t do physicals” thing is more of a knock on him rather than a “look how good his sales still are”. The industry has changed nowadays, pure sales are back on the rise, it is 100% Drake’s fault if his sales are lower because he feels like he’s too good to drop physicals anymore.

And also, even if he did for this album, the total first week number would’ve been nowhere near 1.57 million. Him and Taylor have two totally different fanbases right now.

CLB was my least fave Drake album too.

I think CLB and FATD are neck to neck. I think FATD is more upbeat and has better party anthems up Drake's alley. I also think SYO is a better lead single than Way 2 Sexy or Girls Want Girls despite neither of them being elite.

But I feel CLB is more cohesive as an album sound and theme wise and it has better deep cuts which helped gave it the crazy longevity it has. CLB was one of the best selling albums of 2022 despite coming out in 2021. I straight up don't see FATD having the legs to last that long. It feels more playlist-esque imho.

lol that was just foolish to predict

Drake gonna have a good week and then Bad Bunny might wipe him out

Drake can't* do physical sales

it begins

If Drake did all the gimmicks that Taylor did with physical sales, added on top of his already humongous streaming numbers, he'd most likely outsell her. Keep in mind that Taylor's past 4 albums sold like around 800k first week with more than half being physical sales. Drake was doing 600-700k without physicals. Imagine his numbers if he did all these gimmicks

First week album sales are supposed to be indicative of how popular an album is that week. No one is busting out Vinyl players or CD players to listen to an album. The only way to tell how popping an album is, is with streaming numbers because that's how folks are actually listening. That's why I think the physical sales numbers is an outdated metric. Breaking down the numbers tells the truth between an artist that's actually being played vs an artist that is good at marketing product to their fans

First week sales are literally just how many copies of an album were sold in its’ first week. Has nothing to do with how many plays an album is getting. If Taylor fans bought a million copies of her new album first week, then the first week numbers should reflect that.

Physical sales aren’t an outdated metric at all, streaming numbers are just an inaccurate metric that correctly measures a different topic in the conversation of music consumption.

Utopia did 244k without bundles

Is it really gimmicks anymore though? Nowadays she’s just dropping variant covers of physical editions of her albums, artists have been doing that for decades. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.

Keep in mind I can’t stand Taylor’s music so this isn’t me defending her as a fan

off-topic to your post, but whats your opinion on travis's bundles with the vinyls for utopia and the majority of these vinyls still not have shipped, yet counted for the first week sales/second week sales

if you go on his reddit page, you see posts about how vinyls were ordered first week or even second week, yet still not even shipped. USPS label created, and still sitting in Cali a month and a half later. Even my own boy still waiting and he order the night of the drop.

that level of desperation is crazy cus ur f***ing over ur dedicated fans with ghost-vinyls that probably never existed and they didnt have the physical means to mass-produce hundreds of thousands in-time, yet still sold them under false pretense and were counted for in his sales, makes 0 sense. If thats not considered a gimmick idk what is

also to add to that, a lot of the $5 vinyl's got cancelled after the fact.

I’ve always been under the belief that a sale should count the moment a monetary transaction is made. If I buy a vinyl the day an album releases, in my opinion the sale should count towards the first week numbers since the money has already left my account, regardless of whether or not the vinyl has shipped that week or not.

I do agree that it’s a little s***ty that people are still waiting for physicals they may have ordered 2-3 months ago, but that’s more to do with the nature of the industry and the vinyl production market than it is anything else.

If Billboard hadn’t updated their rules to products having to ship in order to count, then USPS labels for these purchases wouldn’t have been made months before the actual product is even officially made yet (I’m pretty sure most of the people still waiting are people who will be receiving the second pressing of the album with Meltdown on it).

And the cancellation thing is a little bit of a gray area because it’s kind of the same idea of someone returning a physical CD to a brick-and-mortar store. That sale won’t be reversed for the artist so I kind of view order cancellations the same way

billboard does have a rule that it has to SHIP in that week for it to be counted for the sales, that is why every vinyl says "shipped" yet is stuck on "label created" for 2 months. Definition of scamming the system for higher first week sales

Like instead of shipping them in the actual week they are ready to ship and it counts for that week (lets say week 10 of the album), those sales still count to the overall number and platinum certifications, but he wanted to boost the first week numbers by scamming the billboard system

its 100% a gimmick

Yes I understand that. What I’m saying is that was a dumb change on Billboard’s part, in my opinion. If a sale is made, if a fan has already paid for a product, then that sale should contribute to the sales tracking week that the purchase was made in, regardless of when the item ships.

So I understand why Travis’s team would create labels for these products so early in advance, and I also empathize with fans that it is a s***ty thing to do to have people think their product is on the way when it won’t be for a while.

But for me it all boils down to the stupid change Billboard made by having sales not count until items ship. If that change never happened, then artists wouldn’t have to create shipping labels months in advance for products that won’t be actually shipping anytime soon.

It also f***ed up the vinyl production industry in so many ways because now massive artists like Taylor and Adele have the entire production market on hold for months at a time because they’re trying to mass produce hundreds of thousands of physicals to be ready by the release date. That pressure wouldn’t exist if sales counted regardless of the shipping time.

Bro the whole point of physical sales was that it reflects how many people are listening to your music. Now the majority of people only listen to music on streaming platforms. That's why we should only pay attention to streaming numbers when trying to evaluate how hot an artist actually is. Like I'm sure Travis and Kanye could sell more merchandise than Drake but they definitely aren't getting streamed as much as Drake. Same with Taylor

Ok? Drake is the one who chose not to use all the tricks of the business, there was a time when drake would’ve done 600k digital only and that time is over

Bro did you see the s*** Taylor pulled to try and block SZA from breaking that record

How sway

Streaming reflects how much your music is getting played on a daily basis.

Pure sales reflect how many copies of your music are being sold.

Don’t conflate the two, they have nothing to do with each other.

She does a lot, but at the end of the day her fanbase supports her more than any other fanbase. Can’t fake that.

Yes but pure sales used to reflect both things, now they only reflect how good an artist can market their product to their supporters.

Pure sales of today definitely aren't the same of as the past

They not playing them albums/vinyls like back in the day when that was the only thing you could play

Just shows how much much your fan base buys into you as a artist/person nowadays, less so they need the physical product to listen