Apple Music is one of the fastest growing music streaming services out there and the company has a strategy of picking up exclusive releases from some of the hottest names in the industry to boost its subscriber count. The strategy appears to be paying dividends for the service as Drake’s Views album has become the first album to hit one billion plays on Apple Music. Views was initially released as a timed exclusive for Apple Music.
Views was first made available to Apple Music subscribers on April 29th. It remained an Apple Music exclusive for less than a week as the album arrived on Spotify and other services just five days later, but when you’re as big as Drake, making fans wait five days for your new music can prove to be quite hard.
The announcement that his album is the first to hit one billion streams on Apple Music comes straight from Drake himself who posted a picture with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple Music head of content Larry Jackson and senior vice president of internet software and services Eddy Cue. All of them are grouped around a plaque which commemorates this big milestone.
To celebrate the achievement, Drake has released a “visual companion” on Apple Music that’s called Please Forgive Me. It’s a short film that stars Drake with songs from Views serving as the soundtrack.
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