Drake's Scorpion Records 1 Billion Streams Globally in First Week

Canadian rapper Drake's newest album Scorpion has set a new streaming record after crossing 1 billion streams worldwide in its first week across all platforms, according to a new report.

On Friday, sources told Billboard that Scorpion had become the first album to hit that milestone in its first week – Scorpion released June 29, and its first week ended July 5 – with 75 percent of the streams coming from the US itself.

That translates to 745.92 million streams in the US, which helped Drake's album Scorpion best previous record holder American rapper Post Malone's Beerbongs & Bentleys, which garnered 700 million streams globally and 435 million streams in the US in its first week.

Scorpion had 300 million streams in its first 24 hours and crossed the 435-million US record in just three days, according to data provided to Billboard.

Interestingly, Drake's newest album – his fifth in eight years – is polling critically the lowest among his efforts, with a 68 score on Metacritic from 23 publications. That's a step down from his 2016 album Views (69), and further than the 2013 album Nothing Was the Same (79), the 2011 album Take Care (78), and the 2010 debut Thank Me Later (75).

Going solely by streaming numbers, it's clear that Drake's popularity is at an all-time high, even if music critics don't feel the same way. Of course, that trend changes if you include his 2017 mixtape More Life – Drake called it a "playlist" as opposed to an album – which has a more favourable 79 score on Metacritic.