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Views (album)

Views is the fourth studio album by Canadian rapper Drake. It was released on April 29, 2016, by Cash Money Records, Republic Records, and Young Money Entertainment. Recording sessions took place from 2015 to 2016, with both Drake and his longtime collaborator and record producer 40 serving as the record's executive producers. 40 also primarily handled the production on the album alongside Nineteen85, Maneesh Bidaye, Kanye West, and Jordan Ullman, among others. It also contains guest appearances by PartyNextDoor, Pimp C, Dvsn, Wizkid, Kyla, Future, and Rihanna.

This article is about the Drake album. For the Byran Beller album, see View (album).

Views

April 29, 2016 (2016-04-29)

2015–2016[1]

  • The Connaught Hotel (London)
  • CR3
  • S.O.T.A. (Toronto)
  • Sandra Gale Studio (Yolo Estate, California)
  • Triangle (Atlanta)

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Views takes influence from West Indian and West African music. The album marks Drake's first full foray into Jamaican dancehall music, while also featuring other genres such as R&B, trap, Afrobeat, UK funky, and pop. Similar to his previous records, the album sees Drake discussing romance, experiences with betrayal, and celebrations of loyalty and friendship. The album was supported by five singles: "One Dance", which topped the US Billboard Hot 100, "Hotline Bling", "Pop Style", "Controlla", and "Too Good".


The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, with 1.04 million album-equivalent units in its first week of release, including 852,000 copies, and achieving a then-record over 245 million streams. It spent a 13 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 and became Drake's first number-one album on the UK Albums Chart. All 20 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100.


The album received lukewarm reviews from critics, many of whom found it to be an overlong retread of Drake's previous work. Despite this, it became one of Drake's most commercially successful albums having sold over seven million certified units worldwide. The album has been certified eight times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and six times platinum by Music Canada. It won Top Billboard 200 Album and Top Rap Album at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards, among other awards.

Background[edit]

The album's title was first announced as Views from the 6, as it first appeared from a report in a July 2014 article from Billboard.[6] According to Drake on Twitter, "the 6" is a reference to his hometown of Toronto, Ontario. On April 29, 2016, it was revealed that the title had been shortened to Views.[7]

Artwork[edit]

The cover artwork for Views was released via Drake's Twitter account on April 24, 2016, which features Drake sitting atop the CN Tower in Toronto. The fact that Drake was significantly larger than life-size on the cover was widely discussed,[8][9] and CN Tower's Twitter account later confirmed it to be photoshopped.[10][11][12] The album cover and booklet were shot by Toronto-based photographer Caitlin Cronenberg.[8] The album cover draws inspiration from the alternate cover for Eminem's seventh studio album, Recovery (2010), which depicts the rapper sitting in a transparent living room in the shape of a rectangular cube, with Detroit's Renaissance Center in the near far background.[13][14]

Themes and production[edit]

Songs on Views see Drake discussing his relationship woes, experiences with betrayal, and celebrations of loyalty and friendship.[15] Writing for Vice, Emma Garland said that what the album "lacks in lyrical sentiment, it makes up for in musical experimentation and production." Garland further define the album as a "minimal nuance of If You're Reading This It's Too Late [that] has bloomed into the more fleshed-out format of Take Care."[16] Elliott Sharp of Red Bull Music described the album's vibe as "chill, slow, smooth, soft, silk, and sleepy".[17] In an interview with Apple Music's Zane Lowe, Drake said that the theme of the album is the "haphazard, ever-changing weather in Toronto."[16]


Views takes influence from West Indian and West African music,[16] while it marks Drake's first full foray into Jamaican dancehall music,[18][19] after having previously explored the genre on his 2015 mixtape, If You're Reading This It's Too Late.[20] Of the five singles released from Views, three were primarily dancehall songs ("One Dance", "Controlla" and "Too Good").[21] Other genres featured on the album include R&B,[16] hip hop,[2] trap,[22] Afrobeat,[16] UK funky,[16] and pop.[5]

Commercial performance[edit]

In Drake's home country of Canada, Views sold 110,000 album-equivalent units, and sold 92,000.[80] In the United States, Views debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, with 1.04 million album-equivalent units, selling 852,000 copies in its first week of release, and achieving over 245 million streams (despite the album, with the exclusion of its singles released at the time, only available to stream on Apple Music for the first two weeks), more than previous record 115.2 million by Beyoncé's Lemonade (despite that album only available to stream on Tidal).[81] It had the biggest week for an album since Adele's 25 collected 1.19 million units in its fifth week of release (week ending December 24, 2015).[82] The last album by a male artist to post a bigger pure album sales week was Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience, when it debuted with 968,000 copies sold in the week ending March 24, 2013.[82] Views became Drake's sixth consecutive number-one album (fifth as solo artist) on the Billboard 200 and largest sales week.[83] In the year 2016, it accumulated 4.14 million equivalent album units, of which 1.6 million were pure sales, ranking as the second best-selling album of the year in pure sales, and the most-consumed album based on album-equivalent units.[84]


In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, with 78,000 sales, becoming Drake's first number-one on that chart.[85] With Views, Drake also joined Adele, Michael Bublé, and Taylor Swift as the only artists in the 2010s decade to have an album remain at number one on the Billboard 200 for six consecutive weeks.[86] Overall, as of 2016, Views has attained one billion streams in the United States, according to his record label.[87] As of April 2018, Views has sold 1.73 million recognized copies and a total of 5.41 million album-equivalent units in the United States.[88]


Nearly every song from Views charted on the Billboard Hot 100 during its debut week; Drake held 20 songs on the chart.[89] As a result, he broke the record for most songs on the Billboard Hot 100, simultaneously.[90] He would later go on to break his own record twice, once through More Life in 2017, and again through Scorpion in 2018.[91] Several of the songs on the album also went platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[92]


Views was ranked as the second most popular album of 2016 on the Billboard 200.[93] The following year it was ranked as the thirteenth most popular album of the 2017,[94] and in 2018, two years after its release, the album was ranked as the forty-seventh most popular album of the year.[95]

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Track notes


Sample credits

2016 in hip hop music

List of number-one albums of 2016 (Australia)

List of number-one albums of 2016 (Canada)

List of number-one albums from the 2010s (New Zealand)

List of UK Albums Chart number ones of the 2010s

List of UK R&B Albums Chart number ones of 2016

List of Billboard 200 number-one albums of 2016

List of Billboard number-one R&B/hip-hop albums of 2016

Culture of Canada