2014 is first year ever with ZERO platinum-certified records

sonik

sonik

Motor City Madman
Apologies if it was already posted.

"While there were certainly a number of great albums you need to have from this year, 2014 will mark the first year since its inception in 1976 that no artist’s album will be certified as platinum from sales. The award is given by the RIAA to mark one million units sold, and with only a few weeks remaining in the year, no album is even remotely close to making the threshold.

The two records nearest the magic number are Beyonce’s self-titled album and Lorde’s “Pure Heroine,” but neither have even crossed the 800,000 mark, with sales of both having tapered off months ago. There is one caveat, and that is the fact that the soundtrack to the animated film Frozen has moved well over three million units; but it being a soundtrack and not a single-artist release places it into a slightly different category."

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/229695/2014-is-first-year-ever-with-zero-platinum-certified-records/


Bonus:
When Iggy Pop can’t live off his art, what chance do the rest have?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...what-chance-do-the-rest-have/article21154663/
 
Wow.

They might have to change it from "units sold" to "units downloaded (legally or otherwise)." :embarrassed:
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I'd like to see disc sales and album downloads together.

Probably be a lot different then :embarrassed:
 
I'd like to see the numbers, both sales and download, for Within Temptation's album 'Hydra'

All I can find is it sold 70,000 cds world-wide in it's first week of release (early Feb.) 15,150 in the U.S. alone.

I know their last album 'The Unforgiving' just on U.S. downloads alone on iTune, the number was 300,000


And there has to be rap and pop-stars that are selling much, much more :embarrassed:
 
I'm surprised it has taken this long. Most music listeners only really care about singles and now that you can download only the songs you want, it makes sense nobody is buying albums anymore.
 
tiger roach said:
Wow.

They might have to change it from "units sold" to "units downloaded (legally or otherwise)." :embarrassed:
Click to expand...



Well, see, that's the common misconception -- it's not units SOLD, it's units SHIPPED. So, it also made it easy to manipulate the numbers, as they don't count units returned from the stores because they didn't sell.
 
Psychotronic said:
Well, see, that's the common misconception -- it's not units SOLD, it's units SHIPPED. So, it also made it easy to manipulate the numbers, as they don't count units returned from the stores because they didn't sell.
Click to expand...

Interesting.

Going forward though, they need to decide if it is a measure of how rich the album is making the artist, or if it is a measure of how popular it is.
 
Psychotronic said:
Well, see, that's the common misconception -- it's not units SOLD, it's units SHIPPED. So, it also made it easy to manipulate the numbers, as they don't count units returned from the stores because they didn't sell.
Click to expand...

They return those? I thought they took those and punched a hole in the jewel case and sold it for a buck? :tongue:
 
Do artists make more if a whole album was downloaded?

What I mean is, if an artist makes 'Y' for a single that's downloaded, say on iTunes or amazon or wherever, if the album has 10 songs do they only make Yx10, or is it more because it's the entire album being sold/downloaded? Or maybe they make less than Yx10?
 
That won't last though. The new Taylor Swift CD releases next week and it will go platinum. The lead single (Shake It Off) has about 3 million paid downloads so far. And that is probably where a lot of the 'sales' happen now....downloads.

I think the new FF release might go platinum as well, but maybe not in this calender year.
 
Jbird said:
I'd like to see the numbers, both sales and download, for Within Temptation's album 'Hydra'

All I can find is it sold 70,000 cds world-wide in it's first week of release (early Feb.) 15,150 in the U.S. alone.

I know their last album 'The Unforgiving' just on U.S. downloads alone on iTune, the number was 300,000


And there has to be rap and pop-stars that are selling much, much more :embarrassed:
Click to expand...

I've been listening to Hydra on Spotify for the last few days. Very good record.
 
sonik said:
Apologies if it was already posted.

"While there were certainly a number of great albums you need to have from this year, 2014 will mark the first year since its inception in 1976 that no artist’s album will be certified as platinum from sales. The award is given by the RIAA to mark one million units sold, and with only a few weeks remaining in the year, no album is even remotely close to making the threshold.

The two records nearest the magic number are Beyonce’s self-titled album and Lorde’s “Pure Heroine,” but neither have even crossed the 800,000 mark, with sales of both having tapered off months ago. There is one caveat, and that is the fact that the soundtrack to the animated film Frozen has moved well over three million units; but it being a soundtrack and not a single-artist release places it into a slightly different category."

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/229695/2014-is-first-year-ever-with-zero-platinum-certified-records/


Bonus:
When Iggy Pop can’t live off his art, what chance do the rest have?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...what-chance-do-the-rest-have/article21154663/
Click to expand...



UGH, this is getting so old. I can't stand to listen to another artist's sob story. I'm sure I'm a super asshole for feeling this way but really enough is enough. Everyone of these people knew that making a living as a musician was an nearly impossible feat when they were kids playing the bedroom of their parents house. The lucky/talented/whatever artists that had lighting strike and became professionals ride that wave while it lasts then seem to forget how lucky they were to have made a nickel in the first place.

Are they getting screwed by the industry? Sure. No breaking news story there, yet they still participate in the system, then bitch about getting screwed. Maybe they would be better served by coming up with a different business model that would better serve the artists, instead of having a never-ending bitchfest circle jerk. It's not impossible. They are not forced to distribute their product through iTunes, Spotify, etc. With everyone of these stories I find it harder and harder to feel sorry for them.

Quit bitching and do something about it. Otherwise I'm done caring.
 
Psychotronic said:
Well, see, that's the common misconception -- it's not units SOLD, it's units SHIPPED. So, it also made it easy to manipulate the numbers, as they don't count units returned from the stores because they didn't sell.
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that changed in the 90s with SoundScan.
 
People still buy albums? I'm not sure album sales means anything as a metric anymore.

I'm not sure why artists continue to release albums, compared to four- or five-song EPs or just strings of singles.
 
Grant Gross said:
People still buy albums? I'm not sure album sales means anything as a metric anymore.

I'm not sure why artists continue to release albums, compared to four- or five-song EPs or just strings of singles.
Click to expand...
I think this is the way to go. It was a consideration when I made my album last year. In a way it would be easier to turn around music more regularly if you are doing smaller batches but I wanted something I could hand people at trade shows and whatnot. An actual album still has a little mystique for me if done well but honestly no one has the attention span or even the time these days to listen to even 40 minutes worth of music n one sitting.

There are guys that I know of through @El Borrachito that produce one song a week for their channels and make six figures a year in advertising revenues on a mix of cover and original music. Some of them have even been signed to YouTube on a retainer against their adsense earnings..they are guaranteed a certain amount each month and if their advertising revenue goes above that number they get that as well. The one I'm thinking of has kinda of a niche audience but he's doing incredibly well financially. Like all markets over time reality changes and you need to roll with it but I think you're going to have fewer and fewer "lifetime" artists from now on.
 
I can't feel too sorry for the "artists". They've basically made a decision that this is the path they wished to tread. If they thought it was going to make them rich, then they're naive, deluded and stupid. As others have noted; that has ALWAYS been the exception, not the rule in music (and for that matter, acting, writing, painting, etc., ad infinitum...) OTOH, being able to do something you love for a living (as opposed to doing something you tolerate, as most of us do) often requires some compromise to your expectations of lifestyle. Folks who are not willing to accept this should reexamine their life choices. I think most of us who have "jobs" have accepted compromises, so it seems rather effete for artists to believe that they should not have to do so.

If I come across as harsh, I apologize, but I'm tired of hearing "poor me" stories.
 
I'll come clean on something here, and I'm sure there are others like me. I've always been ahead of the times.

I started stealing music in MP3 form all the way back in 1998 (IRC trading was big then, this was even before Napster) and burning to CD, and I maybe bought 20 albums after that. I think the last time I paid for music was approximately 2007 when I actually bought a handful of used Pixies albums.

What's funny though is, I haven't even bothered downloading music in years. My current hard drive doesn't have a single MP3 on it. I can now stream almost any song I want to listen to from Youtube anywhere I'm at. I don't even need to "steal" them anymore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top