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Billboard Charts Won’t See Kanye West’s Name Anywhere on Them Anytime Soon

Not topping the charts is one downside to an exclusive on Tidal.

Forget about landing the No. 1 slot, Kanye West doesn't even make the list. 

While Ye’s Twitter has been relatively calm over the weekend, perhaps not topping the Billboard charts will inspire the next rant about how you can’t measure greatness.

While we digress, the fact of the matter is that while The Life of Pablo remains available exclusively on Tidal, it will be omitted from the Billboard 200 chart. The album, while dominating headlines and ear buds alike since its release, may never see its spot on the chart if West follows through with his promise stating that the album “will never be available for sale.”

According to the New York Times, Tidal has yet to disclose its statistics on how many listeners are streaming the album, and as far as Kanye and his self-declared problematic ego are concerned, maybe he’s better off not knowing.

Silvio Pietroluongo, the president of Billboard’s charts and data development, released a statement explaining why his company had to omit the album, saying ”Billboard has been informed that Tidal is not currently reporting streams for tracks on Kanye’s album to Nielsen Music. Therefore streams from Tidal for this title will not contribute to Billboard’s chart rankings at this time."

Rihanna’s ANTI release saw a similar situation, where the singer went with Tidal first, and other platforms second, resulting in a lower Billboard debut (at No. 27) its first week. ANTI later went on to climb the charts, skyrocketing to the No. 1 slot in its second week. 

If Tidal does release information regarding the streaming numbers West’s album has seen and the album remains an exclusive, Billboard may have no choice but to continue to leave the album out given a lack of other data to work with. The album also has reportedly been illegally downloaded over 500,000 times, making its success hard to measure.

Ye already knows we’re listening and watching, and maybe for now, that’s enough. 

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 (Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Yeezy Season 3)

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