Elite 100: The Weeknd, Drake Return To Top

Courtesy Golden 1 Center – The Weeknd
The Weeknd keeps the crowd on its feet at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, Calif., Oct. 11.

The Weeknd has dropped a six-song EP, which shot him right back to the top of the Elite 100 Artists chart for the week ending April 5.

The new EP, My Dear Melancholy, is already doing big numbers for The Weeknd with 76.6 million streams and 60,400 song sales since its March 30 release. The R&B crooner spends much time singing about heartbreak and relationships, with two features from Gesaffelstein.

The album comes right before he takes a headline slot at Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, giving his fans plenty to gush over before he takes center stage.

It is no surprise to see Drake, a frequent collaborator with The Weeknd, at No. 2. Drizzy has truly become the king of the spins charts, as his trickle of a two-song EP and singles, all leading to an eventual album release, has kept him on top of the Elite 100 for months. Drake’s position this week is still riding the success of the Scary Hours EP featuring the smash hit “God’s Plan.” He also released a single with BlocBoy JB, who is on the chart at No. 39 with 13,900 song sales and 9 million streams.

The week in question doesn’t even account for Drake’s release of the single “Nice For What” April 6, which will almost assuredly return him to the top slot. It’s hard to overstate the mastery Drake is displaying in keeping his fan base engaged and getting his music to as wide an audience as possible.

The strength of Post Malone’s single “Psycho” with Ty Dolla $ign, released Feb. 23, has him back at No. 3 for the week, with 49,500 song sales and 25.9 million streams. Posty is a regular entry on the chart, despite not having released an album since 2016’s Stoney. The rapper has kept mining successful tracks from that project, like “I Fall Apart,” which really started gaining traction in 2018, and collaborative singles like “Psycho” and “rockstar” with 21 Savage. His next project, Beerbongs & Bentleys, is due out April 27.

Post Malone is also performing at Coachella starting April 14, and has headline dates throughout the spring, mostly at amphitheatres with 21 Savage and SOB X RBE. He also is lined up to play Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, Tenn.; Rolling Loud Music Festival in Miami Gardens, Fla.; Preakness InfieldFEST in Baltimore; Governors Ball in New York; and Bunbury in Cincinnati.

The last time we did the Elite 100 chart, for the week ending March 22, Rich The Kid was at No. 63, but he has since shot up to No. 4 with 25.7 million streams and 21,200 song sales, mostly on the March 30 album The World Is Yours.

Other outliers on the chart include Hayley Kiyoko, whose album Expectation released March 30, good enough to get her to No. 51 on the chart, mostly on the strength of 5,200 album sales. She has gigs booked along the West Coast of North America starting tomorrow in San Diego.

The leader for album sales for the week in question was Chris Stapleton, with 5,600. The country star’s most recent album was From A Room: Volume 2, which was released in December of last year.

Next week, as mentioned Drake will likely shoot right back to the No. 1 chart, though one challenger might be Cardi B, who released her full-length album Invasion Of Privacy April 6. Other artists who released projects last week include Underøath, Kylier Minogue, Lil Xan, Flatbush Zombies, E-40 & B-Legit and The Wonder Years.

April 13 will see new projects from The Damned, John Prine, Manic Street Preachers, and a long-awaited project Joyride from Tinashe.