RIAA Finally Steps Into The Present. ..
On Monday Feb 1st the RIAA announced a huge change in the way records and singles will be certified. They are now counting streams in it’s very own “Album Awards With Streams” “Single Awards With Streams” categories. Stepping into the present, I think it’s a perfect way to start off Black History Month for the RIAA, making Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, yet again, the most bought / streamed album of all time. Not to mention Kendrick Lamar get’s his second platinum certification this time for “To Pimp A Butter Fly”. People were upset Rihanna went platinum in one day, but the idea of another company purchasing your record so you can go platinum was accepted back in 2014, but anyway…
How it works:
RIAA will include on-demand audio and video streams and a track sale equivalent in Gold & Platinum (G&P’s) Album Award. The modernization of the program’s album rule follows a similar update made to digital single certifications in 2013, when the RIAA first added on-demand streams to its Digital Single Award. Collectively, this now means that the program’s iconic benchmarks – 500,000 (Gold), 1,000,000 (Platinum) and 2,000,000 plus (multi-Platinum) – will count both sales and streams for single and album certifications…more at RIAA
1500 streams will be equivalent to one album sale. And now 150 single streams will be equal to one download. Why? Well if you think about it, if Spotify’s alleged per-stream fee is $0.007 then if you multiply that by 1500 you’ll get about 10 dollars, which is basically around the same price as an actual album. Furthermore if an artist releases an album, but only sells 20,000 physical copies and 80,000 digital copies, but their album is streamed over 100 million times, don’t you think it should count for something?! People often look at charts to determine an artist worth, but If you have that many people streaming your record, and your sales don’t add up, I still think you have a strong hold on the industry, dont you?
A list of people positively affected by this change:
Big Sean, Dark Sky Paradise (Def Jam Recordings): Platinum
Fifth Harmony, Reflection (Epic): Gold
Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly (Top Dawg Entertainment/Interscope): Platinum
Michael Jackson, Thriller (Epic/Legacy): 32X Multi-Platinum
Romeo Santos, Fórmula Vol. 2 (Sony Latin): 11X Diamante/RIAA Latin G&P Program
The Weeknd, Beauty Behind the Madness (XO/Republic Records): 2X Multi-Platinum
I think it’s a great id…kudos to the RIAA!!! They even have a new website so that fans who are interested in the actual numbers, sales and certifications can visit the number one source vs using wikipedia here: RIAA GOLD AND PLATINUM.
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