Drake's 'Views,' Adele's '25' & Rihanna's 'Work' Lead Nielsen's Mid-Year 2016 Charts

Drake's Views and Adele's 25 lead Nielsen Music's 2016 U.S. mid-year album charts, while tracks by Drake, Desiigner, Flo Rida and Rihanna dominate the mid-year song tallies.

For the tracking period of Jan. 1 through June 30, 2016, Drake's Views rules as the most popular album in the country, earning 2.6 million equivalent album units. (Equivalent album units are comprised of traditional album sales, track equivalent albums [TEA] and streaming equivalent albums [SEA].)

Views ranks as the second-biggest-selling album so far in 2016, with 1.3 million in traditional album sales. Ahead of it is Adele's 25, with 1.4 million sold. (25 was released in 2015, and has sold 8.86 million copies in total.) 25 also stands as the No. 2 most popular album overall so far in 2016, based on equivalent album units, with 1.7 million units earned. 

'Views From the Top: The Chart Records Set by Drake's Album (So Far)

Views launched exclusively for sale through the iTunes Store and to stream via Apple Music on April 29. On May 6, the album became available to purchase through other retailers, while it reached other streaming services on May 13.

Views is one of three albums to have sold 1 million copies in 2016, alongside Adele's 25 and Beyonce's Lemonade (1.2 million). A year ago at this point, only one album, Taylor Swift's 1989, had sold a million.

Overall album sales are down 14 percent compared to the mid-year point in 2015 (100.3 million albums sold versus 116.1 million). The bright spot in the album sales picture continues to be vinyl LP sales, as the format grew 11.5 percent in the first half of the year, selling 6.2 million copies. That's up from 5.6 million in the first half of 2015. The top-selling vinyl album of 2016, so far, is David Bowie's Blackstar, with 57,000 sold. (See the full list of the year's top 10-selling vinyl albums, below.)

While album sales keep on sliding, total on-demand audio and video streams maintain their growth. Combined on-demand audio and video streams rose 58.7 percent in the first half of 2016 to 208.9 billion (up from 131.6 billion at mid-year in 2015). Of that sum, on-demand audio streams comprised 113.6 billion in 2016 – up 97.4 percent compared to 54.5 billion at the mid-year point in 2015. On-demand video streams totaled 95.3 billion so far in 2016 – up 28.6 percent compared to 74.1 billion in the first six months of 2015.

U.S. Record Industry Sees Album Sales Sink to Historic Lows (Again) — But People Are Listening More Than Ever

The most-streamed song (combining audio and video on-demand streams) so far in 2016 is Rihanna's "Work," featuring Drake, with 511.5 million streams. Drake's "One Dance," featuring WizKid and Kyla, is the year's most-streamed audio song (286.4 million), while Desiigner's "Panda" is the top-streamed video (269.4 million).

"Work" is also the second-biggest audio stream at the mid-year point (249.6 million), and the No. 2 most-streamed video (261.8 million). It also ranks as the No. 4 biggest-selling song (1.6 million downloads sold). See lists for all of the above metrics, below.

Flo Rida's "My House" reigns as the top-selling song on Nielsen's mid-year charts, with 1.9 million downloads sold. Total song sales fell 24 percent compared to the same point a year ago: 404.3 million versus 531.6 million.

2016's Mid-Year Top 10 Albums (Based on Overall Equivalent Album Units)
1. Drake, Views (2,609,000 units)
2. Adele,  25 (1,747,000 units)
3. Beyonce, Lemonade (1,687,000 units)
4. Justin Bieber, Purpose (1,332,000 units)
5. Rihanna, Anti (1,272,000 units)
6. Chris Stapleton, Traveller (931,000 units)
7. Prince, The Very Best of Prince (905,000 units)
8. Twenty One Pilots, Blurryface (905,000 units)
9. The Weeknd, Beauty Behind the Madness (708,000 units)
10. Kevin Gates, Islah (690,000 units)

2016's Mid-Year Top 10 Selling Albums
1. Adele, 25 (1,403,000)
2. Drake, Views (1,313,000)
3. Beyonce, Lemonade (1,202,000)
4. Chris Stapleton, Traveller (746,000)
5. Prince, The Very Best of Prince (575,000)
6. Rihanna, Anti (480,000)
7. Justin Bieber, Purpose (479,000)
8. David Bowie, Blackstar (428,000)
9. Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain (Soundtrack) (413,000)
10. Panic at the Disco, Death of a Bachelor (397,000)

2016's Mid-Year Top 10 Selling Vinyl Albums
1. David Bowie, Blackstar (57,000)
2. Adele, 25 (36,000)
3. Twenty One Pilots, Blurryface (31,000)
4. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black (27,000)
5. Bob Marley & The Wailers, Legend: The Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers (23,000)
6. Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly (22,000)
7. The Beatles, Abbey Road (21,000)
8. Twenty One Pilots, Vessel (20,000)
9. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (19,000)
10. The Lumineers, Cleopatra (19,000)

2016's Mid-Year Top 10 Selling Digital Songs
1. Flo Rida, "My House" (1,947,000)
2. Lukas Graham, "7 Years" (1,831,000)
3. Justin Bieber, "Love Yourself" (1,653,000)
4. Rihanna featuring Drake, "Work" (1,610,000)
5. Twenty One Pilots, "Stressed Out" (1,586,000)
6. Drake featuring WizKid & Kyla, "One Dance" (1,442,000)
7. Justin Timberlake, Can't Stop the Feeling!" (1,400,000)
8. Zayn, "Pillowtalk" (1,288,000)
9. Mike Posner, "I Took a Pill In Ibiza" (1,273,000)
10. Desiigner, "Panda" (1,211,000)

2016's Mid-Year Top 10 On-Demand Song Streams (Audio and Video Combined)
1. Rihanna featuring Drake, "Work" (511,454,000)
2. Desiigner, "Panda" (467,379,000)
3. Justin Bieber, "Sorry" (325,235,000)
4. Drake featuring WizKid & Kyla, "One Dance" (308,826,000)
5. Justin Bieber, "Love Yourself" (296,890,000)
6. Zayn, "Pillowtalk" (289,509,000)
7. G-Eazy x BeBe Rexha, "Me, Myself & I" (287,242,000)
8. Lukas Graham, "7 Years" (284,251,000)
9. Twenty One Pilots, "Stressed Out" (277,195,000)
10. Fifth Harmony featuring Ty Dolla $ign, "Work From Home" (255,697,000)

2016's Mid-Year Top 10 On-Demand Audio Streams
1. Drake featuring WizKid & Kyla, "One Dance" (286,396,000)
2. Rihanna featuring Drake, "Work" (249,625,000)
3. Desiigner, "Panda" (197,997,000)
4. G-Eazy x BeBe Rexha, "Me, Myself & I" (180,962,000)
5. Zayn, "Pillowtalk" (169,634,000)
6. Mike Posner, "I Took a Pill In Ibiza" (161,051,000)
7. Justin Bieber, "Love Yourself" (155,058,000)
8. Lukas Graham, "7 Years" (149,936,000)
9. Rihanna, "Needed Me" (146,364,000)
10. Justin Bieber, "Sorry" (145,482,000)

2016's Mid-Year Top 10 On-Demand Video Streams
1. Desiigner, "Panda" (269,382,000)
2. Rihanna featuring Drake, "Work" (261,829,000)
3. Justin Bieber, "Sorry" (179,753,000)
4. Silento, "Watch Me" (152,687,000)
5. Justin Bieber, "Love Yourself" (141,833,000)
6. Twenty One Pilots, "Stressed Out" (135,576,000)
7. Lukas Graham, "7 Years" (134,315,000)
8. Zayn, "Pillowtalk" (119,875,000)
9. Kevin Gates, "2 Phones" (115,024,000)
10. Adele, "Hello" (113,612,000)

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