Tidal Exclusivity Blocks Kanye West's 'The Life of Pablo' from Billboard Charts

BY Sarah MurphyPublished Feb 23, 2016

Kanye West's The Life of Pablo has undoubtedly been the most buzzed-about album of 2016 so far, and now that the name has finally been settled and the album has finally been released, one might expect all the drama to translate into chart performance. Well, the latest Billboard standings are in — and The Life of Pablo is nowhere to be found.
 
West recently declared that the new record would only ever be available through streaming service Tidal, and it seems that as long as that's Ye's action plan, The Life of Pablo won't be breaking into the Billboard charts.
 
"Billboard has been informed that Tidal is not currently reporting streams for tracks on Kanye's album to Nielsen Music," Billboard's vice-president of charts and data development Silvio Pietroluongo told the New York Times. "Therefore streams from Tidal for this title will not contribute to Billboard's chart rankings at this time."
 
Rihanna recently suffered a similar fate, releasing Anti as a week-long Tidal exclusive and entering the Billboard charts at a meagre No. 27 with 1,000 copies sold. After releasing the album beyond the realm of Tidal in its second week, however, Rihanna's latest LP skyrocketed to No. 1.
 
Who's currently resting atop the list in the No. 1 spot? It seems Adele's faulty Grammy performance was no match for the romantic Valentine's Day crowd, as 25 is back in the top position.
 

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