Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois has been certified gold.
Sufjan Stevens Gets a Gold Record
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Jay-Z’s New Album Goes Platinum
Jay-Z’s new album, 4:44, has already been certified platinum by the RIAA.
Panic! at the Disco Grabs Another Platinum Single
Panic! at the Disco’s song “Death of a Bachelor” has gone platinum.
Streaming Music Surpasses Digital Downloads
The RIAA has released their report on the state of the US music industry in 2015. Streaming is now the biggest revenue source.
The U.S. recorded music industry continued its transition to more digital and more diverse revenue streams in 2015. Overall revenues in 2015 were up 0.9% to $7.0 billion at estimated retail value. The continued growth of revenues from streaming services offset declines in sales of digital downloads and physical product. And at wholesale value, the market was up 0.8% to $4.95 billion – the fifth consecutive year that the market has grown at wholesale value.
RIAA Adds Streams Into Certifications
The RIAA has announced that they will be counting streams as part of certifying albums and singles Gold or Platinum:
After a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors – including streaming and download consumption patterns and historical impact on the program – and also consultation with a myriad of industry colleagues, the RIAA set the new Album Award formula of 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale. Also effective today, RIAA’s Digital Single Award ratio will be updated from 100 on-demand streams = 1 download to 150 on-demand streams = 1 download to reflect streaming’s enormous growth in the two plus years since that ratio was set.
I think this move was inevitable. There’s a good chance that in our lifetime album “sales” will be rendered irrelevant. The full press release can be found below.