According to Chart News, Roc Nation rapper, J.Cole’s third studio album 2014 Forest Hills Drive debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart after selling over 371,000 copies in its first week of release.
The album’s 15.7 million streams in its first week on Spotify surpassed the previous record of 11.6 million streams by One Direction for their album Four, released in November.
The first single released off 2014 Forest Hills Drive, “Apparently,” debuted at number 40 on the Billboard R&B/Hip Hop Airplay charts on Monday, two spots ahead of the debut of Nicki Minaj and Beyonce’s collaboration track, “Feelin’ Myself.”
Cole’s album became the latest to enjoy a sales increase due to Billboard’s change in tracking album sales for its Top 200 album chart. Under Billboard’s new method, 1,500 streams is equivalent to one album sale. Cole’s record-seting 15.7 million Spotify streams accounted for roughly 10,466 albums sold. The new method also takes into account “track equivalent” album sales which, count every ten song downloads from an album as an album sale.
Streaming and track equivalent album sales accounted for 17,690 of the total album sales for the first week, and those 15.7 million Spotify streams accounted for roughly 59 percent of those sales.
