Dr. Dre shoots to top of albums chart

The musical companion piece to the hit movie “Straight Outta Compton” is showing that Apple Music, which debuted in June, can hold its own against competitors like Spotify.

Dr Dre’s third album, the soundtrack to N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, follows his last release, called 2001.

Compton sold 295,000 total albums in its debut week, including 276,000 in pure sales, Billboard reports.

Ed Sheeran’s x – last year’s best-selling album in the UK – climbed one spot to No 3, with Years and Years’ Communion in at No 4 and Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour rounding off the top 5.

Compton, the new album from hip-hop mogul and Apple employee Dr. Dre, was streamed 25 million times in its first week on Apple Music. The firm is glad the with the performance of the album considering the fact that it was locked down within Apple. Furthermore, Apple executive’s statement did not reveal whether the figures provided were only of complete listeners of the album, or whether they included those listening to only individual songs. Apple’s senior vice president for Internet software and services, Eddy Cue, also said in an interview with The New York Times that Apple Music’s free 90-day trial subscription has attracted about 11 million users. Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late picked up 48 million streams in one week back in February, and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly picked up nearly 39 million the following month.

The album is now only being made available for stream via Apple Music and for download via iTunes.