The RIAA is not known for being the most progressive organization in the world, but today is took a massive step to get in line with the current trends of the music industry. It has announced effective today, Feb. 1 that the RIAA will include video and audio streams and track sale equivalent in Gold & Platinum album award calculations.
Now in the modern age of digital downloads and streaming, reaching those coveted marks of 500,000 (Gold) and 1,000,000 (Platinum) won't seem so difficult to achieve for some artists.
There will be detractors who say that modern music is streamed more than older music because that is how youth consume their and this will disadvantage older artists in the long run. However sales are down so much that the streaming equivalent is just a way to try and even out the parity in sales between now and 30 years ago. It also recognizes that singles are sold more than albums, due in part to the digitization of music, which allows consumers to pick apart albums for their favorite songs and just buy those specific records. However the argument could be made that it cheapens the certification of a gold or platinum record. However, RIAA has already been including streams in single sale totals and not much fuss was raised over that.
"Modernizing our Album Award to include music streaming is the next logical step in the continued evolution of Gold & Platinum Awards, and doing so enables RIAA to fully reward the success of artists' albums today," says Cary Sherman, Chairman and CEO of RIAA in a statement.
The RIAA has unveiled their formula for how it album and track equivalents will be calculated. 1,500 audio and / or video streams will equal 10 track sales, which equals one album sale.
In doing so, album sales have been recalculated to accommodate the change and some have been bumped up to receive gold, platinum or a new level of multi-platinum. Michael Jackson's Thriller is just getting out of hand with a 32X platinum record now, while other albums like Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, Big Sean's Dark Sky Paradise, Coldplay's Ghost Stories and Miranda Lambert Platinum all hit the equivalent million sales mark.
Other artists like Elle King, Alt-J, Vance Joy and Halsey now have gold records to hang on their walls. See the full list below.
Alt-J - An Awesome Wave (Atlantic Records) - Gold
Big Sean - Dark Sky Paradise (Def Jam Recordings) - Platinum
Brett Eldredge - Bring You Back (Atlantic Nashville) - Gold
Coldplay - Ghost Stories (Atlantic/Parlophone) - Platinum
Elle King - Love Stuff (RCA) - Gold
Fifth Harmony - Reflection (Epic) - Gold
Halsey - Badlands (Astralwerks) - Gold
Hozier - Hozier (Columbia) - Platinum
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly (Top Dawg Entertainment/Interscope) - Platinum
Michael Jackson - Thriller (Epic/Legacy) - 32X Multi-Platinum
Miranda Lambert - Platinum (RCA Nashville) - Platinum
Romeo Santos - Fórmula Vol. 2 (Sony Latin) - 11X Diamante/RIAA Latin G&P Program
Sam Hunt - Montevallo (MCA Nashville) - 2X Multi-Platinum
Shawn Mendes - Handwritten (Island Records) - Platinum
The Weeknd - Beauty Behind the Madness (XO/Republic Records) - 2X Multi-Platinum
Vance Joy - Dream Your life Away (Atlantic Records) - Gold
Wale - Ambition (Atlantic Urban) - Gold
