Adele’s ’25’ Reclaims Number One, Nears 8 Million Copies

One million copies of the record were given away through Tidal on Wednesday – thanks to a sponsorship deal with Samsung – but it was made available on the music streaming service hours before it was meant to hit the airwaves.

The rep said that when discussing the “system error” previously mentioned, Kim was actually “referring to a system error caused by Universal Music Group”.

“Look, we know what happened here, in the sense that unfortunately we still rely on systems, and there was a system error”, she said. This week’s Billboard 200 covers sales through January 28th, the same day as Anti’s arrival, so while Rihanna’s new album won’t be recognized on the charts as instant platinum like Adele’s, it should still grab the Number One spot next week.

It is likely to climb the chart next week after a full week of sales and release of the physical album in stores on Friday. She later went on to clarify that the system error was on the part of UMG. “I don’t think it hurt it at all” in regards to the leak.

Of Anti’s 1.4 million downloads, only 400,000 will count as actual sales in the eyes of the Billboard 200. “There were conversations [with Billboard] early on when this promotion and partnership started, but ultimately it became about giving music directly to the fans”, Kim explained.

One explanation for the low sales number for “Anti” comes from Tidal itself.

Ri-Ri offered the album as a free download, and hundreds of thousands of listeners took her up on the offer. The 400k+ sales of ANTI via TIDAL will be counted by Billboard.

“This is the new model”, she continued, offering up some more of that classic Tidal-speak. “Soon enough everyone else with have to come along for the ride”. But this lack of peace has birthed a far more introspective artist and as a result, we get better music.