We live in a confusing era.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has controversially introduced video and audio streaming equivalents into its Album Award methodology for the first time.

Effective from yesterday (February 1), plays on the likes of YouTube, Vevo, Apple Music and Spotify in the US will count towards the RIAA’s Gold & Platinum Album Awards.

A quick reminder of the criteria to win such accolades:

500,000 sales (Gold)

1,000,000 sales (Platinum)

2,000,000-plus sales (multi-Platinum)

Here’s the important bit.

The RIAA has said that after ‘a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors’, it has decided to introducing a new Album Award formula to count towards these Gold and Platinum awards.

Here’s that formula in all of its glory:

1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale.



Opponents of this kind of move will point out that 1,500 YouTube plays of a single song from an album is hardly akin to the experience of buying and listening to a full LP.

It also arguably takes far less commitment on the behalf of a customer.

One label boss recently phrased it like this to MBW:

“So let’s get this straight: If 100 different people nip into a book store and each skim-read a chapter of a novel on their lunch break, does that then count as a book sale?”

In addition, the streaming equivalent ratio for the RIAA’s Digital Single Award in the US is lengthening, to ‘reflect streaming’s enormous growth in the two plus years since the ratio was [originally] set.’

150 on-demand streams will now be equivalent to a single download. Previously, 100 on-demand streams did the job.

In late 2014, Billboard updated its historic Billboard 200 chart so that it took into account streams for the first time.

Like the RIAA’s update, Billboard’s chart equates 1,500 song streams from an album equated to one LP sale, but currently just from audio subscription services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and others.

“For nearly six decades, whether it’s vinyl, CDs, downloads or now streams, the Gold & Platinum Program has adapted to recognize the benchmarks of success in an evolving music marketplace,” said Cary Sherman, Chairman and CEO, RIAA.

“We know that music listening – for both for albums and songs – is skyrocketing, yet that trend has not been reflected in our album certifications. Modernizing our Album Award to include music streaming is the next logical step in the continued evolution of Gold & Platinum Awards, and doing so enables RIAA to fully reward the success of artists’ albums today.”

Seventeen titles, encompassing albums from dozens of music labels and spanning many genres, are included in the inaugural certifications for the newly expanded Album Award.

The RIAA has awarded the following artists with new certifications:

Alt-J “An Awesome Wave” (Atlantic Records) – Gold

Big Sean “Dark Sky Paradise” (Def Jam Recordings) – Platinum

Brett Eldredge “Bring You Back” (Atlantic Nashville) Gold

Coldplay “Ghost Stories” (Atlantic/Parlophone) – Platinum

Elle King “Love Stuff” (RCA) – Gold

Fifth Harmony “Reflection” (Epic) – Gold

Halsey “Badlands” (Astralwerks) – Gold

Hozier “Hozier” (Columbia) – Platinum

Kendrick Lamar “To Pimp a Butterfly” (Top Dawg Entertainment/Interscope) – Platinum

Michael Jackson “Thriller” (Epic/Legacy) – 32X Multi-Platinum

Miranda Lambert “Platinum” (RCA Nashville) – Platinum

Romeo Santos “Fórmula Vol. 2” (Sony Latin) – 11X Diamante/RIAA Latin G&P Program

Sam Hunt “Montevallo” (MCA Nashville) – 2X Multi-Platinum

Shawn Mendes “Handwritten” (Island Records) – Platinum

The Weeknd “Beauty Behind the Madness” (XO/Republic Records) – 2X Multi-Platinum

Vance Joy “Dream Your life Away” (Atlantic Records) – Gold

Wale “Ambition” (Atlantic Urban) – Gold

The RIAA created its Gold & Platinum Awards Program in 1958 to ‘honor artists and create a standard to measure the commercial success of a sound recording’.

First awarded to LP recordings but expanded to a number of formats over time to include cassette tapes, CDs, digital tracks, digital albums, ringtones, and streams, nearly 30,000 certifications have been awarded by the RIAA during the last 58 years.Music Business Worldwide