It’s More Complex Than You Think. And it gets interesting.
Traditionally, albums achieve platinum when they sell a million records. But few people buy albums today. Few people buy music in general.
With digital downloads ubiquitous today, what meaning do platinum and gold have? And do they still have a purpose in today’s music world?
Well, it turns out that these questions are more complicated than they seem.
With digital downloads ubiquitous today, what meaning do platinum and gold have? And do they still have a purpose in today’s music world?
Well, it turns out that these questions are more complicated than they seem.
RIAA and the Expanding History of Music Certifications
What is the RIAA?
It’s the Recording Industry Association of America and is a conglomeration of most of the top distributors and publishers of music. Here’s what they have to say:
"The Recording Industry Association of America® (RIAA) is the trade organization that supports and promotes the creative and financial vitality of the major music companies. Its members comprise the most vibrant record industry in the world, investing in great artists to help them reach their potential and connect to their fans. Nearly 85% of all legitimate recorded music produced and sold in the United States is created, manufactured or distributed by RIAA members.
In support of this mission, the RIAA works to protect the intellectual property and First Amendment rights of artists and music labels; conduct consumer, industry and technical research; and monitor and review state and federal laws, regulations, and policies. RIAA also certifies Gold®, Platinum®, Multi-Platinum™, Diamond and Los Premios De Oro y Platino™ sales and streaming awards."
Though they were not the first to use certifications to display ratings, there were the most popular.
Before them, the George Formby certified the first album with “silver” in 1936. The album was “The Window Cleaner” and achieved 100,000 units sold. After that, several other organizations caught the trend.
And in every case, the certification was used as a marketing tactic. It was a clear form of achievement. Albums or singles that achieved one of these ratings typically started to sell even more because it was social proof.
So in 1958, the RIAA created its gold certification. To achieve gold, albums or singles needed one million dollars in retail sales in the US. With the price of albums at the time, this was about 250,000 albums sold.
This changed in 1976 as albums started becoming more popular. Then, they introduced platinum. Albums could achieve platinum by selling one million units, and gold was now redefined for albums selling half a million units. Singles need double of each number.
What’s important here is the shift from revenue to unit sales.
Revenue to unit sales.
That will come back later.
And as time went on, Vinyl became Cassettes and Cassettes became CDs, and music sold even more. Later on, the RIAA created “multi-platinum” certifications where two million sales were double platinum, three million was triple platinum, etc. Then in 1999, they announced diamond, which was for ten million sales.
Certifications Troubled in the Digital Era
It’s important to note that this entire time, the medium for music kept changing.
Yet the certifications kept holding up.
After all, if you measure success, 1,000 LPs sold is pretty much the same as 1,000 CDs sold. A unit sold is a unit sold.
However, in the digital era, people don’t always buy music.
That’s a problem.
One million units sold can still work for those buying digital copies of music off iTunes.
But most people don’t buy music.
Why pay for Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” when you can listen to it on YouTube for free?
Furthermore, there are even more streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Prime Music, YouTube Music, Google Play Music, Deezer, Groove Music, Tidal, iHeartRadio, Beats Music, Ghost Tunes, Slacker, MOG, Songza, Snapper, Bandcamp, and more!
By the old standards, listening to “Get Lucky” on Spotify wouldn’t count towards any certification.
It was possible to have a wildly successful song with over a billion listens that couldn’t even achieve gold.
A Flawed Solution
In response to these concerns, in 2013, the RIAA announced that it would start counting streamed music towards its certifications. From then on, 100 streams would be the equivalent to one unit sold.
Of course, this raises the question, why so many streams?
In my case, there are very few (if any songs) that I have streamed 100 times. Much of that music I would have bought if steaming weren’t available.
So does that mean my music listening habits harm these creators ratings?
Does this sound like your habits as well?
How many views should equal one unit sold?
It Get’s Worse…
Because digital music isn’t restricted to entire songs, in fact, it’s not uncommon for people to use the music for other purposes, like ringtones. And piracy is a real concern. If someone listens to a pirated copy of a song, does that count?
After all, they did steam and listen to it, even if illegitimately.
And that brings us to another huge issue: what counts as a stream?
Do you need to listen to the entire song for it to count? Or just a part of a song?
How much of the song is enough?
A minute, two, three? What about for an hour-long song or album? Are two minutes still sufficient?
And do you need to listen to the entire album for it to count as steam? Can you miss a song or two?
What about defining a stream as a percentage? Maybe listening to half the album or song will count?
But what if I listen to a third and you listen to a third? Then together we’ve streamed over half the song or album, but neither of us has generated a “steam”. Can they add up?
It’s All Arbitrary
I’m sure that the RIAA probably has answers and definitions to all the questions. However, through my research, I couldn’t find the answers to any.
The best answer is that 100 steams equal to one unit sold (and that there is a separate definition for ringtone downloads).
Any answer or standard they assert has to be arbitrary. We could debate all day what we should count towards the certification in the comments below, and that shows how arbitrary it is.
(In fact, let’s actually debate that and have an engaging and thoughtful conversation!)
The best answer is that 100 steams equal to one unit sold (and that there is a separate definition for ringtone downloads).
Any answer or standard they assert has to be arbitrary. We could debate all day what we should count towards the certification in the comments below, and that shows how arbitrary it is.
(In fact, let’s actually debate that and have an engaging and thoughtful conversation!)
What do These Certifications Even Mean, Then?
One way you could look at these metrics is that they are pointless because they are entirely arbitrary.
I’m not of that opinion, though.
I don’t think these certifications need to be exact. They don’t even need to be the most standard.
After all, the goal of these certifications is to give consumers an idea of what’s popular, not of how many units were sold.
As long as consumers can differentiate the trendy music from the less popular music, it doesn’t matter what metric you use as long as it completes its goal.
After all, a million copies sold is an arbitrary number.
I’m not of that opinion, though.
I don’t think these certifications need to be exact. They don’t even need to be the most standard.
After all, the goal of these certifications is to give consumers an idea of what’s popular, not of how many units were sold.
As long as consumers can differentiate the trendy music from the less popular music, it doesn’t matter what metric you use as long as it completes its goal.
After all, a million copies sold is an arbitrary number.