In the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, the Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America is a trust that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors, which the RIAA say "create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States" awards certification based on the number of albums An album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites and singles In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a short recording of one or more separate tracks. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear on an album. Often, these are the most popular sold through retail and other ancillary markets.[1] Other countries have similar awards (see music recording sales certification Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped a certain number of copies). Certification is not automatic; for an award to be made, the record label The term "record label" originally referred to the circular label in the center of a vinyl record that prominently displayed the manufacturer's name, along with other information must request certification and pay a fee to have the sales of the recording audited. The audit is conducted against net shipments after returns (most often an artist's royalty statement is used), which includes albums sold directly to retailers and one-stops, direct to consumer sales (music clubs and mail order) and other outlets.
Presently, an American RIAA-certified gold record Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped a certain number of copies is a single or album that has sold 500,000 units (records, tapes or compact discs). Originally, the requirement for a gold single was one million units sold and a gold album represented $1 million in sales (at wholesale value). In 1975, the additional requirement of 500,000 units sold was added for gold albums. Reflecting growth in record sales, the platinum award was instituted in 1976 for albums selling one million units and singles selling two million units. The multi-platinum award was instituted in 1984, signifying multiple platinum levels of albums and singles. In 1989, the sales thresholds for singles were reduced to 500,000 for gold and 1,000,000 for platinum, reflecting a decrease in sales of singles. In 1992, RIAA began counting each disc in a multi-disc set as one unit toward certification. Because of these changes in criteria, the sales level associated with a particular award depends on when the award was made.
Nielsen SoundScan Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada. Data is collected weekly and made available every Wednesday to subscribers, which include executives from all facets of figures are not used in RIAA certification; the RIAA system predates Nielsen SoundScan and includes sales outlets Nielsen misses. Prior to Nielsen SoundScan, RIAA certification was the only audited and verifiable system for tracking music sales in the U.S.; it is still the only system capable of tracking 100% of sales (albeit as shipments less returns, not actual sales like Nielsen SoundScan). This system has allowed, at times, for record labels to promote an album as gold or platinum simply based on large shipments. For instance, in 1978 the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a multi-platinum double album produced by George Martin, featuring covers of songs by The Beatles and was released in July 1978, as the soundtrack to the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It starred the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton and Steve Martin soundtrack shipped platinum but was a sales bust, with two million returns.[2] Similarly, all four solo albums by the members of Kiss Kiss is an American hard rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Easily identified by its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting, smoking guitars, and pyrotechnics. Kiss has simultaneously shipped platinum that same year but none of them even managed to crack the top 20 of the Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Often, a recording act will be remembered by its "number ones", those of their albums that outsold all others during album chart. The following year, the RIAA began requiring 120 days from the release date before recordings were eligible for certification, although that requirement has been reduced over the years and currently stands at 30 days. More recently, Sony Sony Music Entertainment is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America was roundly criticized in 1995 for hyping Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and philanthropist. Referred to as the King of Pop, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular's double album HIStory HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a two disc ninth studio album by Michael Jackson, released on June 16, 1995. The first disc is a compilation album (HIstory begins), whereas the second disc (HIStory continues) is all new song's. HIStory is the best-selling multiple disc album ever, with worldwide sales of over 20 million copies (40 as five times platinum, based on shipments of 2.5 million and using the RIAA's recently adopted practice of counting each disc toward certification, while SoundScan was reporting only 1.3 million copies sold.[3] A similar discrepancy between shipments and sales was reported with The Lion King The Lion King: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the original motion picture soundtrack for Walt Disney's 1994, 32nd animated feature The Lion King. It contains songs from the film written by Elton John and Tim Rice, composed by Hans Zimmer , performed by Carmen Twillie, Jason Weaver, Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeremy Irons, Cheech Marin, soundtrack.[4]
List of certifications
Records
Currently, the RIAA certification criteria for albums are:
- 500,000 units: Gold album.
- 1,000,000 units: Platinum album
- 2,000,000 or more units: Multi-Platinum album
- 10,000,000 units: Diamond album
Multi-disc
Multi-disc albums are counted once for each disc within the album if it is over 100 minutes in length or is from the vinyl era. For example, each copy of OutKast OutKast is an American hip hop duo based in East Point, Georgia, consisting of Atlanta native André "André 3000" Benjamin and Savannah, Georgia-born Antwan "Big Boi" Patton. They were originally known as The OKB (The OutKast Brothers) but later changed the group's name to OutKast. The group's original musical style was a's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (running time of 134:56), and Shania Twain Shania Twain, OC is a Canadian country pop singer and songwriter. She rose to fame in the early 1990s with her self-titled debut album Shania Twain (1993), and achieved worldwide success with her 1997 album Come On Over, which became the best-selling album of all time by a female musician, and the best selling country album of all time. The Album's Up! Up! p!) is the fourth studio album released in 2002 by Canadian singer Shania Twain. Three versions of the album were released: a country version (green disc), a pop version (red disc) and an international version (blue disc) in the style of Indian film music; all three discs contain exactly the same track listing and featured identifiable picture (145:44), both double albums A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold . A double album is typically, though not always, released because the recording is longer than the capacity of the medium. Recording artists often think of double albums as a single piece artistically; however, there are exceptions such as Pink Floyd', were counted twice, meaning each album was certified diamond after 5 million copies were shipped. Pink Floyd Pink Floyd were an English rock band who earned international recognition for their psychedelic rock music in the late 1960s, and for their progressive rock music from the 1970s onward. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. One of rock music's most critically's The Wall The Wall is the eleventh studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. It was released as a double album on 30 November 1979. It was subsequently performed live, with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into the film Pink Floyd The Wall and The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. From 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals). Rooted in skiffle' White Album The Beatles is the ninth official British album and the fifteenth American album by The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is commonly known as The White Album as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name on its plain white sleeve. The album was the first The Beatles undertook following the death of their manager, Brian, both vinyl-era, are counted double even though their running times are under the minimum.
Spanish
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The following certifications are given only to recordings of which over 50% of the content is in the Spanish language Countries where Spanish has official status. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 25% or more of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 10-20% of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 5-9.9% of the population:[5]
- 50,000 units: Oro album.
- 100,000 units: Platino album.
- 200,000 units: Multi-Platino album.
Singles
It is estimated that there have been about 2,550 combined single certifications.
Standard singles are certified:
- Gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from Latin: aurum, "shining dawn", hence adjective, aureate) and an atomic number of 79. It has been a highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since the beginning of recorded history. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks, in veins and in alluvial when it ships 500,000 copies
- Platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pt and an atomic number of 78. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." It is in Group 10 of the periodic table of elements. A dense, malleable, ductile, precious, gray-white transition metal, when it ships 1,000,000 copies
- Double platinum Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped a certain number of copies when it ships 2,000,000 copies
Note: Before January 1, 1989, gold was achieved at 1,000,000 copies, and platinum at 2,000,000 [1].
Digital
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Recently, digital singles have begun to be certified due to the increase of the digital market and decrease of the physical commercial singles market. Although digital downloads A music download is the transferral of a song from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment if required have been around since 2003, they weren't considered to be significant until 2005, when they were first counted towards the Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday. A new chart is compiled and officially. Because of this, it is important to distinguish between singles that came out before and after the change (as singles after the change sold in higher quantities at a faster rate, while the older singles took longer to reach levels of certification). After the change, the certification standards were brought up to the same standard as retail distribution. Since then, digital distribution has become a prime selling method for singles - overhead can be considerable when distributing a CD with only a few tracks on it, and the roughly $1/track standard for digital distribution, combined with the ease of use in sellers like iTunes The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States. On February 24, 2010, the store served its 10 billionth song download; this major milestone was, has caused enormous growth.
Digital singles are certified:
- Gold means 500,000 tracks downloaded
- Platinum means 1,000,000 tracks downloaded
- Double platinum means 2,000,000 tracks downloaded
From 2004 through July 2006, the certification level was 100,000 downloads for Gold and 200,000 for Platinum. When the RIAA changed the certification standards to match retail distribution in August 2006, all platinum and multi-platinum awards for a digital release were withdrawn. Gold certifications, however, were not, meaning a song that was downloaded over 100,000 times and certified so by the RIAA during that time frame, retains its gold status.[6]
Records
Lists from RIAA site showing current status holders of RIAA Certifications:
- List of best-selling music artists in the United States This is the list of the top 100 best-selling music artists in the United States only as of December 2008 and based on certifications of albums by the RIAA
- List of best-selling albums in the United States This is a list of the best-selling albums in the United States based on RIAA certification. The criteria are that the album must have been published , and the album must have shipped at least 10 million units in the United States. Groupings are based on different certification benchmarks, the highest being for certification of at least 20–29
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The Boot (blog) The gold certification for that album extends Reba's lead as the female artist with the most RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) sales ...
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December 7 2004 Purple Haze RIAA Certification Gold May 16 2006
