Drake Earns His 36th US Top 10 Hit, And It Isn't Even His Song

By FYI Staff

Future's Life Is Good, featuring Drake, debuts in the US this week on Billboard’s Hot 100 at No. 2. The publication notes that the track marks a new high for Future, who earns his third top 10– then adds the fact that it also gives Drake his 207th entry, tying him with the Glee Cast for the most appearances in the chart's 61-year history.

According to Billboard chart data, the track is Drake’s 36th Hot 100 top 10, extending his record for the most among male artists, and becomes the first artist to reach 100 top 40 hits.

Of course, Drake’s dizzying data peaks have been headlined, tweeted and pumped up like he was something far greater than the universe’s No. 1 mortal funkmaster.

In a year-end synopsis of music in the past decade, The Washington Post’s Travis M. Andrews perfectly captures the essence of what the magic sauce is that makes Drake winner take all in the incredibly lucrative streaming sweepstakes.

Spotify’s most-streamed artist since 2010 is — we’d say “drum roll, please” but the answer is too obvious — Drake, followed by Ed Sheeran, Post Malone, Ariana Grande and Eminem.

Of course, Drake claimed the top spot. By gaming the streaming system, the rapper — with a boost from Spotify — engineered his own popularity.

One logical way to rack up numbers is to release more songs for fans to stream. Drake, ever the workhorse, has released at least 179 songs on Spotify since 2010. That equates to nearly an 18-track album per year, and doesn’t count singles or songs that feature the rapper only. The sheer output alone is astronomical, but Drake seems to have another trick up his sleeve: He creates soundscapes more than albums — sets of songs that bleed into each other, encouraging a listener to just let it ride.

That’s another important ingredient to attract streams. As The Washington Post’s pop music critic Chris Richards wrote in 2017: “Streaming is designed to feel cool and undisruptive. It promises fluid, frictionless listening — an experience that can be entirely predictable, even when you don’t know exactly what’s coming next. … Dominance belongs to those superstars willing to replicate their softness in abundance, and then roll it out on the streaming platforms — the way that Drake and the Weeknd have each done on their wildly successful, shamelessly overlong albums of late.”

– Continue reading Andrews’ Washington Post feature, Drake was Spotify’s most-streamed artist of the decade. What does this mean?