Kanye West has made history with the cross platform release of The Life of Pablo.


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Despite its non traditional release, The Life of Pablo is the seventh studio album West has created landing in the number one spot. According to Billboard, it also set a new record as the first number one where a majority of the units—in this case, 70 percent—came from streams.

Positioning on the chart, the site explains, is calculated to include “traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).” The album’s 99 million streams for the week ending April 7 translates to 66,000 SEA units; it moved 94,000 units overall during the week.

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Making this achievement even more incredible is the fact that although The Life of Pablo was initially released on February 13 via Tidal’s streaming service, and briefly as a commercial download via West’s official website, it was unable to chart due to the set’s sales and its streams through Tidal not being reported to Nielsen Music, whose data powers the Billboard 200 chart. The success we see playing out is due to his release on other platforms that did report the streams, which started effective April 1.

Kanye West, pleased with the results, let fans know not only is he excited about the achievement; but that he’s also working steadfast on the tour.

The Life of Pablo is West’s seventh consecutive number one album. Pablo follows his previous leaders Yeezus (2013), Watch the Throne with JAY Z (2011), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), 808s & Heartbreak (2008), Graduation (2007) and Late Registration (2005). Kanye has only missed the top slot once, with his debut effort, The College Dropout, which bowed and peaked at number two in 2004.