Charts: Dr. Dre Misses Number One, But Apple Gets Modest Win

Straight Outta Compton‘s impressive $56 million opening weekend at the box office wasn’t enough to propel Dr. Dre‘s Compton past Luke Bryan’s Kill the Lights on the Billboard 200, as the rapper’s first LP in 16 years finished Number Two behind the country star. However, Compton‘s chart position speaks volumes about the reach of Apple Music, as Dre’s new album was only available to purchase and stream through Apple.

Compton sold 295,000 total albums in its debut week, including 276,000 in pure sales, Billboard reports. Despite being available to stream only through Apple Music, Dre’s N.W.A biopic-inspired album was streamed 11 million times in the U.S. and 25 million times worldwide, the New York Times reports. While that total pales in comparison to first-week streams of Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late (48 million) and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (30 million), those anticipated LPs’ numbers were assisted by non-exclusivity and Spotify’s much larger subscriber base.

Dr. Dre previously called Compton his “grand finale,” and if that’s the case, the Doctor will retire without ever having a Number One album: 1993’s The Chronic peaked at Number Three and 1999’s 2001 maxed out at Number Two.

Bryan’s Kill the Lights sold 345,000 total albums in its debut week, giving it the best opening week sales for a country LP in three years. Between Bryan and Dre, the Billboard 200 recovered nicely from last week’s debacle, which featured the lowest-selling Number One album (Descendants soundtrack) of the Nielsen SoundScan era. In fact, this marks the first time the Number One and Two albums both sold over 275,00 copies since December 2014.

This week’s Top 10 featured two more debuts: The Now 55 compilation sold 76,000 copies to land at Number Three and Christian rapper TobyMac placed at Number Four as his This Is Not a Test sold 38,000 copies. Taylor Swift’s 1989 rounded out the Top Five.