Drake Holds Artists 500 Crown as Lil Nas X Cracks Top Five
Drake cruised to a record-extending 34th week at the top of the Rolling Stone Artists 500 chart, picking up 31.9 million song streams for the week of September 17th through the 23rd.
Drake’s total was down from the 396.1 million song streams he accumulated last week, though three weeks after the release of Certified Lover Boy, it was still the 10th highest weekly stream total in the chart’s history. Drake also became the second artist in RS charts history to top the Top 100 Songs chart, the Top 200 Albums chart and the Artists 500 for three consecutive weeks (the other being Post Malone).
Top Artists
Drake
317.9M
Kanye West
132.1M
Lil Nas X
123.2M
Taylor Swift
103.6M
YoungBoy Never Broke Again
102.8M
Coming in behind Drake yet again was Kanye West, who notched 132.1 million song streams, while arriving at Number Three was Lil Nas X, who picked up 123.2 million song streams following the arrival of his debut album Montero (the last time he was in the Top 5 of the Artists 500 was June 2019). While Montero wasn’t able to best Certified Lover Boy on the RS200, the album still had a strong first-week showing, debuting at Number Two and moving 123,00 album-equivalent units.
The Rolling Stone Artists 500 chart ranks the most-streamed artists of the week in the United States, taking into account audio streams across an artist’s entire catalog during the tracking period. The chart does not include passive listening such as terrestrial radio or digital radio. The Artists 500 is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ending the previous Thursday.
Coming in at Number Four, meanwhile, was another Artists 500 regular, Taylor Swift, who also hit a new milestone this week. Following the release of her re-recorded version of 1989’s “Wildest Dreams,” Swift garnered 103 million song streams, which marked the first time since May she’d cracked 100 million weekly streams.
Elsewhere on the Artists 500, Nirvana hit a new peak, landing at Number 114 with 17.8 million streams as Nevermind celebrated its 30th anniversary. Earth, Wind & Fire also hit a new peak of 212, bringing in 12 million streams, likely thanks to everyone celebrating September 21st with their hit “September.”
Nigerian singer-songwriter Tems made her Artists 500 debut at Number 401 following the release of her new project, If Orange Was a Place. And just behind her, composer Toby Fox appeared on the Artists 500 for the first time at Number 413 following the release of the video game, Delatrune Chapter 2 and its accompanying soundtrack.
