Drake has been officially confirmed by Spotify as the most-streamed artist of all time on the service. Drake overtook Justin Bieber to win the crown, but couldn't top another Justin, Timberlake, that is, on the Hot 100 charts, as "Can't Stop the Feeling!" beat out "One Dance" to own the number one spot.
Drake's streaming success comes off the back of the overwhelming success of his latest album Views, which hit the number one album spot upon its release, buoyed by the reaction to the collection's first single, "One Dance," which also landed at number one upon release.
Drake toppled Bieber, who previously owned the most-streamed artist crown due to the success of his most recent album Purpose, which contained the top singles "Sorry," "What Do You Mean" and "Love Yourself."
The feat by Drake is all the more impressive, given that his album Views was an Apple Music exclusive during its first two weeks of release, with only a few tracks available on Spotify and other streaming music services. Views has also sold more than a million copies so far, the first album released this year to do so.
Even though Drake toppled Bieber off the streaming throne, he couldn't do the same with that other Justin pop star — Timberlake, of course, who ruled the Hot 100 this past week, knocking Drake's "One Dance" from the top spot. Timberlake achieved the triumph via digital download sales, which amounted to a whopping 379,000 for the week, the most since Adele's "Hello."
Tech Times has reported that the Drake vs. Timberlake war was largely a battle of streaming vs. downloads, and although Drake's "One Dance" indeed received around double the number of streams for the week as Timberlake's "Can't Stop The Feeling!" the other Justin toppled Drake based on good old digital download sales, proving that there's still a lot of life in the download format some are saying Apple plans to phase out permanently in favor of streaming.
