RIAA's highest album certification: The legendary album “Thriller” certifies 29X Multi-Platinum!

[MsMo]

RIAA Adds Digital Streams To Historic Gold & Platinum Awards

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES – The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) today announced the integration of streams to its historic Gold & Platinum (G&P) Program, the industry’s premier award for recognizing artistic achievement in the marketplace. On-demand audio and/or video song streams will now be counted towards the 500,000 (Gold), 1,000,000 (Platinum) and 2,000,000 plus (multi-Platinum) thresholds required for G&P’s Digital Single Award certification...

“Including music streaming in Gold & Platinum awards marks the continued evolution of the industry’s premier program for recognizing artistic achievement, and it reflects the wide spectrum of ways consumers enjoy music from their favorite bands,” said Cary Sherman, Chairman & CEO, RIAA. “The music business, along with its incredible array of digital service partners, is offering fans more access to music than ever before. We’re thrilled that our awards will now more fully recognize artists’ commercial success today.”

Jim Donio, President of music business association NARM commented, "Getting streams included in the RIAA’s Gold and Platinum Awards certification has been a top agenda item for all of the member music services who participate in our digitalmusic.org Music Subscription Work Group. They are especially pleased to see these collaborative efforts come to fruition, and for music fan’s streaming activity be measured and recognized by the G&P Awards, one of the most important milestones in an artist’s career. Over the past few years, our members have also worked on related initiatives such as the creation of the first On Demand Songs Chart with Billboard and Nielsen, and we will continue to work with the RIAA and others as our industry evolves in the digital era."

On-demand streams on digital music services that are authorized by and reported to the record labels, whether paid for by the consumer through a subscription or free to the consumer through ad-supported services, will be accepted for RIAA certifications. Only official label/company videos count towards certification; user generated videos do not. Whymusicmatters.com, a joint initiative of the RIAA, NARM, and digitalmusic.org, lists the leading authorized music services in the United States.

The RIAA developed its Gold & Platinum Awards Program in 1958 to honor artists and create a standard by which to measure the commercial success of a sound recording. The program trademarked the Gold record and formalized the industry practice of presenting awards to artists for music sales achievements.

First awarded to LP recordings but expanded to a number of formats overtime to include cassette tapes, CDs, digital tracks, digital albums, ringtones, and now streams, more than 14,000 titles have been certified by the RIAA during the last 55 years.

All certifications are calculated by the firm Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, which has audited title sales for the RIAA for more than 30 years. Complete lists of all album, single, mastertone and video awards can also be accessed at riaa.com, while new and notable program news can be found at facebook.com/GoldandPlatinum.


NEW certifications! for Michael -

Thriller (album) 29X Multi-Platinum
Billie Jean (single) 2X Multi-Platinum

RIAA

VVN Music

 

[Hess]

Great!

They need to update ALL his albums!!

 

[Moonwalker.Fan]

Thats fine, but that 29X Multi-Platinum thing has been known since 2005, especially since 2009, and I am sure that only a few tens of thousands were needed to reach 30x Multi.Platinum..., and I believe its more than 30x.

so and the eagles have...? cos some guys have a thing for them, and they still give them more than Thriller...

 

[MsMo]

As the announcement says, 2009 Michael Jackson’s legendary album “Thriller” (Epic/Legacy) certifies 29x multi-Platinum to join the Eagles’ “Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975” (Elektra/Warner Bros.) as the highest album certification in G&P history.

...

so and the eagles have...? cos some guys have a thing for them, and they still give them more than Thriller...

 

[ChrisC]

But you can't stream an album as a single entity...

So this is more aimed at singles?

Also it's quite bizarre. If I buy an album/single I buy one copy. Therefore 1 unit is generated towards these grand certifications. But by the same token, each time I listen to that album or single it should then count...as it does if I stream it. Sounds like nonsense to me. I am getting this all wrong?

 

[MsMo]

...This new expansion of the G&P Program – the approach, methodology and formula – was the culmination of a year-long project by the RIAA, led by Sherman, and a variety of label marketing, business and data analysis executives, in which the RIAA examined comprehensive information comparing data on digital downloads to similar data on on-demand audio and video streams. The RIAA also closely consulted with NARM/digitalmusic.org, many digital music services, artist managers and industry leaders. It is important to note the new certification approach, including the formula of 100 streams being equivalent to one download, is an approximate barometer of comparative consumer activity; the financial value of streams and downloads were not factored into the equation... For more details, read in FULL @ the RIAA link - Sorry for the confusion :cheeky:

But you can't stream an album as a single entity...

So this is more aimed at singles?

Also it's quite bizarre. If I buy an album/single I buy one copy. Therefore 1 unit is generated towards these grand certifications. But by the same token, each time I listen to that album or single it should then count...as it does if I stream it. Sounds like nonsense to me. I am getting this all wrong?

 

[bobmoo79]

IF they really plan to inlude streams in the certification of whole albums, rather than just individual songs/singles, then this new rule spells the end of Thriller's dominance as the highest certified album IMO. It has become more apparent over the last few years that songs from artists like Bieber and Psy generate HUGE numbers of streams online, and that could be the same for their albums, not just singles.
It will probably always be at or near the top of the USAs biggest selling albums (physical sales) but soon a new phenomnenon will easily generate more than 290million streams (because that equals 29million downloads). Meanwhile, Thriller is a 30 year old album and won't receive as many streams and so will fall down the list of most certified albums. Oh well, I guess times change and we have to move on.

 

[Billie Jean 78]

IF they really plan to inlude streams in the certification of whole albums, rather than just individual songs/singles, then this new rule spells the end of Thriller's dominance as the highest certified album IMO. It has become more apparent over the last few years that songs from artists like Bieber and Psy generate HUGE numbers of streams online, and that could be the same for their albums, not just singles.
It will probably always be at or near the top of the USAs biggest selling albums (physical sales) but soon a new phenomnenon will easily generate more than 290million streams (because that equals 29million downloads). Meanwhile, Thriller is a 30 year old album and won't receive as many streams and so will fall down the list of most certified albums. Oh well, I guess times change and we have to move on.

If they do this and if this happens I will be very disapointed!!!

 

[JustPaul]

Nice! XD
Go Michael! Go!

 

[Hess]

MJ Thriller needs to reach 30X Multi-Platinium !!! - At least!!!

 

[mjchris]

oh my god. ^^
they are so far away from reality. now this? adding streams?, streams? , hello?
and that is the next cheat against michael jackson.
this will end everything.
be sure, in a few years, thriller is not the biggest selling album anymore. that is what the media want to have.
all this weird chart systems, an now certifications, are so far away from reality. this i only to rub out all the phenomenal and great achievements that all the legends created. and now they deleting this all by using such a cheating system. only to push up some music idiots that dont have any quality, cant sing, cant dance, no epic, not tallent, nothing.
i mean, think about "PSY". psy the best selling artist of all time. lol. the whole world is laughing. cause that is so ridiculous.the world will lost the seriousness on music. this is music, not a fun movie!

unbelieveable, unbelieveable. whats going on on this earth? so far away from reality. :blink:

bastards!

 

[ChrisC]

It's an inaccurate barometer if you ask me.

We all know the likes of Justin Beiber has millions and millions of followers on Twitter, and according to a recent article a HUGE number of these followers are fakes and that often artists see their tallies multiply overnight - what's to stop the PR machines of these artists from doing the same to get high certifications.

Fans could just sit and let their streams play in loop all day. 100 streams isn't much.

The old method was better. You paid a lot of money for an album. Sometimes you saved up to buy it. You dreamt about it. It meant something. So the certifications did too.

 

[HIStory]

On-demand streams on digital music services that are authorized by and reported to the record labels, whether paid for by the consumer through a subscription or free to the consumer through ad-supported services, will be accepted for RIAA certifications.

So "sales figures" won't really be about sales any more... Free streaming will be counted in it as well. How fair! I think if they want to monitor streaming too, they should make a seperate chart for it and not count it together with actual sales.


It's the end of an era then, I guess. As far as I'm concerned no matter what happens with these streams Thriller will always remain the best selling album of all times, because they would only be able to beat it by changing the rules. Imagine if there had been streaming during Thriller era and that would have counted into the sales!




Also that it's 29x platinum is NOT a new certification for Thriller. It was certified 29x platinum in 2009. Sice then it's probably at or over 30x (well if they'd certify it again).

 

[HIStory]

It's an inaccurate barometer if you ask me.

We all know the likes of Justin Beiber has millions and millions of followers on Twitter, and according to a recent article a HUGE number of these followers are fakes and that often artists see their tallies multiply overnight - what's to stop the PR machines of these artists from doing the same to get high certifications.

Fans could just sit and let their streams play in loop all day. 100 streams isn't much.

The old method was better. You paid a lot of money for an album. Sometimes you saved up to buy it. You dreamt about it. It meant something. So the certifications did too.

Yep, Bieber has hundreds of millions of views on YT, but his actual sales are not big. He usually sells 2-3 million copies of an album. Not many. Which means that the hundreds of millions of views are just because his fans are little fangirls who have nothing better to do all day than to watch his videos over and over again. But the number of people who are willing to pay for his music is not that many at all.

And like you said this system also seems very suspectible to manipulation by record labels. But maybe that's exactly the goal...

 

[InvincibleMJ]

I'm not sure about it but most songs that got the new platinums are from the last 5 years and Whitney's song is from the 90's. Are there any songs on the list older than Billie Jean or from the 80's? I think it's the only one!

 

[HIStory]

I'm not sure about it but most songs that got the new platinums are from the last 5 years and Whitney's song is from the 90's. Are there any songs on the list older than Billie Jean or from the 80's? I think it's the only one!

Good point!

 

[mjchris]

So "sales figures" won't really be about sales any more... Free streaming will be counted in it as well. How fair! I think if they want to monitor streaming too, they should make a seperate chart for it and not count it together with actual sales.


It's the end of an era then, I guess. As far as I'm concerned no matter what happens with these streams Thriller will always remain the best selling album of all times, because they would only be able to beat it by changing the rules. Imagine if there had been streaming during Thriller era and that would have counted into the sales!




Also that it's 29x platinum is NOT a new certification for Thriller. It was certified 29x platinum in 2009. Sice then it's probably at or over 30x (well if they'd certify it again).

Yep, Bieber has hundreds of millions of views on YT, but his actual sales are not big. He usually sells 2-3 million copies of an album. Not many. Which means that the hundreds of millions of views are just because his fans are little fangirls who have nothing better to do all day than to watch his videos over and over again. But the number of people who are willing to pay for his music is not that many at all.

And like you said this system also seems very suspectible to manipulation by record labels. But maybe that's exactly the goal...

that is what i'm talking about for years now, after that fake chartsystem starts incl. airplay and downloads.
that is what i also talked about the last days in the thread with the 8 top 10 hits in the uk. cant remember the artist who did that. some wanna be star. irrelevant musicer.
and i also said they can do that. but only for a new chart. and not to count them together. thats not the reality.

and in my opinion they still have not certified thriller for 30 mio copies (I'm sure it allready did long time ago), cause they want to get sure that one album by an unknown artist will use this new fake system to get to number one. to finally push MJ from the Number 1 spot forever. i mean they claim it is number 2, but with this they can fake this now forever. and nothing will bring thriller back to number 1.
the number 1 spot that thriller have since 1984. cause the eagles never was on number 1. and that was proven. to my knowledge the eagles have around 15 or 17 mio, if i remember correctly?

 

[HIStory]

^ The Eagles album may be close to Thriller in the US, but on global sales it's nowhere near. They are not as global as MJ.

 

[mjchris]

looks like you dont know the facts.
the fact is that the eagles album never sold that number of 30 mio. soundscan proved that.
it's like i said less than 18 mio. dont know the number at the moment.

 

[HIStory]

Delete.

 

[Krshna28]

Does anybody know how far it is from 30million?

Can't wait for it to be certified 3xDiamond!!!!!

 

[LindavG]

Does anybody know how far it is from 30million?

Can't wait for it to be certified 3xDiamond!!!!!

I would think it is already at 30 million if it was 29 million in 2009. Was it 29 million before or after MJ's death? John Branca said MJ sold over 50 million albums since his death and I imagine a significant part of that is for Thriller.

The 29 million figure is just for sales within the US, right?

 

[HIStory]

Does anybody know how far it is from 30million?

Can't wait for it to be certified 3xDiamond!!!!!

According to that New Yorker article that was discussed in this thread: http://www.mjjcommunity.com/forum/t...100-Million-Copies?highlight=Thriller+million
it sold more than 30 million by now:

For “Thriller,” we have R.I.A.A. data as of 2009, representing at least twenty-nine million albums. How about since Jackson died? Billboard, citing SoundScan figures, reported two years after Jackson’s death that “Thriller” had sold about two million more. It’s still selling, so at this point it’s safe to say it’s sold in the neighborhood of thirty-two million or so in the United States.

I think it would be nice if the Estate got it certified. (I thought they would do so for the 30th anniversary of the album, but because it was the year of Bad 25, Thriller got less attention from them, I guess.)

Thriller had a pretty good chart run on Billboard at the beginning of this year too.

Linda, yes the ~30 million number is only for the US.