2014 has become the First Year with ZERO Platinum Records since 1976Music

[Sanji Himura]

No single artist album in 2014 has been certified platinum yet this year, this according to the RIAA which keeps tabs on record sales. The two albums that have come close to breaking this threshold, Beyoncé's self titled album and Lorde's "Pure Heroine", haven't even reached 800,000 units sold. This has signaled a trend that digital sales comes with the fact that you can buy singles off an album without buying the whole album. With this knowledge in hand, album sales dropped 20% from this time last year.

This year hasn't been at total wash. 60 different songs have been certified platinum this year, and the Frozen soundtrack sold 3 million units. However, since Frozen is a soundtrack, it abides by different rules.

However, not all looks as bleak as I make it sound. The remainder of 2014 is rather lacking in artists who can move a lot of units in a short amount of time, with a decent long shot going to the Foo Fighters' new album "Sonic Highways" that will release soon, but even at that, it is a short 8 weeks to move a million units..

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Considering the massive amount that digital accounts for these days, this really just begs the question: what the hell happened in 1976?!

I'm sure some record execs will point to this as yet another example of the downfall of the industry or some such nonsense, but all it does is show that their methods of measurement are outdated, nothing more.

 

[All Your Base]

EDIT: Tree'd

 

[disinfected]

Not in one year.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Considering the massive amount that digital accounts for these days, this really just begs the question: what the hell happened in 1976?!

1976 was the year the award was created. Prior to 1976, a Gold record symbolizes one million sales, singles and albums. After the award was created, the RIAA redefined what got Gold and what got plat with the former being half a million sales and the latter being one million. The first album prior to 1976 that got certified platinum legitimately (meaning that it wasn't a converted Gold Album) was 1958's Van Cliburn of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, and that was certified two decades later.

 

[All Your Base]

2014 is not over yet. Billboard predicts Taylor Swift's "1989" may sell over 1,000,000 in one week.

 

[Slash]

Pirating.

 

[SniperRed3]

But that's assuming the people who pirate it would buy it if they couldn't pirate it.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Figures.

I guess we should've seen this coming, what with her being the star of these deeply informative NYC Tourism videos.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Of course it helps that she pulled everything from her back catalog from Spotify, equating it to piracy.

She just lost a potential fan.

 

[jimipitbull]

Considering the massive amount that digital accounts for these days, this really just begs the question: what the hell happened in 1976?!

.

 

[Ettick]

A lot of music is streamed these days, so less people are buying music.

 

[Epic B]

A lot of music is streamed these days, so less people are buying music.

That would make sense. Or piracy. Or both.

 

[JAHHAJ]

I feel piracy isn't that big anymore (I may be wrong), I feel that it's mainly because most people don't want whole albums so they either buy the songs they want or they stream the song or album.