Dr. Dre’s much-anticipated “Compton: A Soundtrack” album was streamed 25 million times during its first week on Apple Music. The album also did well on iTunes, selling almost a half a million downloads.
Dre’s record was released on Aug. 7 as a two-week Apple Music exclusive and is loosely tied to Straight Outta Compton, a movie chronicling the rise of legendary hip-hop group N.W.A. Apple executives revealed “Compton’s” first week numbers to The New York Times in a statement on Sunday.
“We’re beginning to show what we can do in terms of communicating music to a worldwide audience and helping artists at the same time,” said Jimmy Iovine, co-founder of Beats Music.
While the numbers for Dre’s album are impressive, AppleInsider notes they pale to the numbers put up by competing services such as Spotify, who recorded 48 million streams of Drake’s “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” which debuted in February. “Compton” is expected to be sitting firmly in the number two spot when the Billboard charts are published today.
