Thriller is now 32x Platinum due to the RIAA's new rules

[HIStory]

Effective Feb. 1, RIAA will include on-demand audio and video streams and a track sale equivalent in Gold & Platinum (G&P’s) Album Award. The modernization of the program’s album rule follows a similar update made to digital single certifications in 2013, when the RIAA first added on-demand streams to its Digital Single Award. Collectively, this now means that the program’s iconic benchmarks – 500,000 (Gold), 1,000,000 (Platinum) and 2,000,000 plus (multi-Platinum) – will count both sales and streams for single and album certifications.

“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. RIAA is today awarding 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 and Wale “Ambition” (Atlantic Urban) Gold.

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.

http://www.riaa.com/riaa-debuts-album-award-streams/

Summary:

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

150 on-demand streams = 1 download

http://www.riaa.com/riaa-debuts-album-award-streams/

 

[DuranDuran]

streaming

I'm not sure how streaming is counted as a sale. It seems not much different than in the past where somebody borrows their friend's album and record it to a blank cassette. The cassette copy is not a sale. Record club sales (12 albums for a penny!) were not counted, and neither were cutout albums & tapes that were sold at a cheap price. Those were actual products. If the same person listens to a streamed album 20 times, then is that 20 "copies" sold? Most people do not buy an album 20 times, maybe 2 or even 3. I knew people who would buy both the record and cassette/8 track or they might later buy a remastered CD of something they already had.

 

[Psychoniff]

^Could be typo....

 

[HIStory]

Re: streaming

I'm not sure how streaming is counted as a sale. It seems not much different than in the past where somebody borrows their friend's album and record it to a blank cassette. The cassette copy is not a sale. Record club sales (12 albums for a penny!) were not counted, and neither were cutout albums & tapes that were sold at a cheap price. Those were actual products. If the same person listens to a streamed album 20 times, then is that 20 "copies" sold? Most people do not buy an album 20 times, maybe 2 or even 3. I knew people who would buy both the record and cassette/8 track or they might later buy a remastered CD of something they already had.

I agree that generally the whole idea sounds stupid. I am a Spotify user, it's on all day while I am working and I often stream albums just to check them out that doesn't mean I like them and I would buy them. Also on streaming services new releases have a massive advantage (just because of the novelty) so it will favour current acts massively. Probably that is the goal too because hardly anyone can go Platinum or even Gold any more based on sales (except for the 5-6 most popular current acts), so they wanted to boost current artists' Gold and Platinum collection a bit, I guess.

It is actually really impressive from Thriller that it streams so well at this age and era and being an 34 years old album and not even some Greatest Hits colllection, but an actual studio album. So it does make me proud as an MJ fan, but the concept of including streams in certifications is not right and will make certifications form now on meaningless IMO.

On the fun side: according to my Spotify stats, last year I streamed MJ 3333 times. So that means I bought 2 MJ albums last year. LOL.

 

[DuranDuran]

^Could be typo....

It says 1,500 on demand audio/video streams counts as 1 album. How can 1,500 views of one song count as an album? That seems more like a single to me. What is "on demand" anyway?

 

[Snow White luvs Peter Pan]

Since streaming count as sales, does it mean Thriller sold 2 million more? But I still don't understand how playing the albums on stream services are counted.

 

[InvincibleMJ]

Now that the Eagles are not 1# RIAA can afford to make stupid new rules

 

[DuranDuran]

Now that the Eagles are not 1# RIAA can afford to make stupid new rules

The thing about the RIAA is that it's not required for record companies to report sales. It's voluntary. Many didn't report sales to avoid paying as much royalties to their acts. If the act doesn't know how much they sold, the label can keep them in the hole by saying they owe the label money. I don't think the RIAA actually audit the labels either.

 

[HIStory]

Kendrick Lamar:

dangeroo kipawaa TDE Hitelesített felhasználó &#8207;<s>@</s>dangerookipawaa we don't stand behind this <s>@</s>RIAA bs. ole skool rules apply, 1 million albums sold is platinum.until we reach that #, save all the congrats.

 

[InvincibleMJ]

The thing about the RIAA is that it's not required for record companies to report sales. It's voluntary. Many didn't report sales to avoid paying as much royalties to their acts. If the act doesn't know how much they sold, the label can keep them in the hole by saying they owe the label money. I don't think the RIAA actually audit the labels either.

This has nothing to do with what I wrote

 

[Psychoniff]

"THRILLERRRRRRRRRRR! Quincy jones and michael jackson!"

 

[HIStory]

In order to get to that reckoning, the RIAA has created a new formula: 1,500 streams is now the official equivalent of ten single track sales or one album sale. (Gold status is awarded after the equivalent of 500,000 sales; platinum, on 1,000,000 sales.) Theoretically, if an artist's single were streamed 1.5 billion times on YouTube, the whole album could be certified platinum.

This is some incredibly stupid BS. LOL.

Certifications are worthless from now on.

 

[DuranDuran]

This is some incredibly stupid BS. LOL.

Certifications are worthless from now on.

Well, the only video that qualifies is Gangnam Style by Psy.

 

[DuranDuran]

I wonder do they only count the official music videos, or with lyric videos, audio only, and fan uploaded songs all added together. Some acts have more than one music video for the same song too.

 

[Karthik]

Things are getting complicated with these new rules. But its good that are counting streaming.
I'm not sure how it will work for songs that are included in multiple collections.

 

[AtlasAir]

They had to do SOMETHING to count these streams, because most people today don't actually buy music, but they WILL stream from a pay service (or ad supported service).

The early 2000's truly were the final years where artists could reap the benefits of album sales (ie N Sync, Britney, Eminem, etc.)

Sure, it's more impressive that millions of people actually paid for a physical copy of your album (or clicked BUY somewhere), but it just isn't the same anymore.

It's a miracle now that anyone can sell a million copies.

 

[HIStory]

Well, the only video that qualifies is Gangnam Style by Psy.

It still would not have been fair to certify a whole PSY album platinum just because he had ONE viral single. Also that is just an extreme example. I think it would be the same if an album had two successful singles each streaming 750,000,000. Or three, each streaming 500,000,000. That's still BS because that's not album sales, I am sorry.

They had to do SOMETHING to count these streams, because most people today don't actually buy music, but they WILL stream from a pay service (or ad supported service).

The early 2000's truly were the final years where artists could reap the benefits of album sales (ie N Sync, Britney, Eminem, etc.)

Do something, alright, but not this. Let's not pretend streaming a song for free on YouTube or one or two viral hits from an album is the same as if people had actually bought your whole album.

Let me give you a personal example on why it is not realistic at all to translate streams into sales.

According to my statistic I streamed Michael Jackson on Spotify 3333 times. Now, under these new rules that equals to buying two Michael Jackson albums. But if Spotify and streaming did not exist that does not mean I would have bought two MJ albums last year. I would not, simply because I have them all already on CD. I would have simply listened to his music on CD if not for Spotify. But under these new rules if my habit is listening to music on Spotify because of the convenience of it, it will translate my habit into as if I am buying MJ CDs all over and over again every year. Cool for MJ's stats I guess, but it's just not realistic to translate those streams into sales.

Of course, I am just using my example and MJ as an example. But it's the same for other artists as well, especially current ones who will be massively advantaged by this system. Some teenage star like Justin Bieber with a fanatic teen fanbase that keep spinning his videos on YT over and over again will be in massive advantage too in this system compared to artists with a more adult fan base who listen to music in more traditional ways. Actually, Bieber is a good example too why streams cannot be converted into sales by a simple mathematical formula. On streams he is king, he is the most streamed artist on Spotify - due to the nature of his fanbase. But when it comes to sales his sales capacity is around 1.5 million copies in the US of an album. While that is not bad in today's climate it's not the best either. Compare him to Adele. On YouTube the number of Bieber's streams since September 2014 (since YT gives info on that for each artist) is 4.9 billion, Adele's is about 3.5 billion. But on actual album sales Bieber cannot touch Adele. (BTW, MJ is doing extremely well for a veteran artist on streaming services, his number of spins on YT for the same period are 3.1 billion.)

I think the best solustion would be if Billboard simply made a seperate chart for streaming and RIAA created a seperate awarding system for streaming. Then people could decide for themselves which is more meaningful to them.

 

[AtlasAir]

I guess it makes more sense to limit it to singles charts rather than album.

What if one person only listens to 4 out of 15 songs on an album repeatedly?


This IS weird.

Streaming should only count with the singles chart to help impact radio spins and such.

Or, like you said, a separate streaming chart.

But, i mean, nobody really calls into radio stations anymore to request songs anymore. So that type of charting seems worthless now.
It's almost like radio stations/satellite radio charts are reflecting off of internet popularity.

GAAH. I sometimes long for a simpler time...

 

[HIStoric]

I wonder do they only count the official music videos, or with lyric videos, audio only, and fan uploaded songs all added together. Some acts have more than one music video for the same song too.

Pretty sure those are included, so long as YouTube identifies the song plays with it's Content ID scheme. I remember a year or two ago, some high school kid dancing to Billie Jean went viral and that made BJ hit the charts again. I don't believe it was because people were hopping onto iTunes and buying the song, but instead the huuggeee amount of views on that one video.

Of course, I am just using my example and MJ as an example. But it's the same for other artists as well, especially current ones who will be massively advantaged by this system. Some teenage star like Justin Bieber with a fanatic teen fanbase that keep spinning his videos on YT over and over again will be in massive advantage too in this system compared to artists with a more adult fan base who listen to music in more traditional ways. Actually, Bieber is a good example too why streams cannot be converted into sales by a simple mathematical formula. On streams he is king, he is the most streamed artist on Spotify - due to the nature of his fanbase. But when it comes to sales his sales capacity is around 1.5 million copies in the US of an album. While that is not bad in today's climate it's not the best either. Compare him to Adele. On YouTube the number of Bieber's streams since September 2014 (since YT gives info on that for each artist) is 4.9 billion, Adele's is about 3.5 billion. But on actual album sales Bieber cannot touch Adele. (BTW, MJ is doing extremely well for a veteran artist on streaming services, his number of spins on YT for the same period are 3.1 billion.)

I think the best solustion would be if Billboard simply made a seperate chart for streaming and RIAA created a seperate awarding system for streaming. Then people could decide for themselves which is more meaningful to them.

I think given the way music is consumed and listened to these days, streaming absolutely has to be incorporated into the charts somehow. After all, many people instead choose to spend money on music subscriptions rather than albums themselves. While yes, traditionally charts have been used to track purchases, they have also been used to help identify trends and popularity of music at any given time (as well as over time). Streaming plays heavily into that factor as well as obviously these trends will carry over onto streaming services.

However, the problem with your information, Respect, is that you are incorporating WORLDWIDE statistics. YouTube and Spotify are fully capable of delivering US-only statistics to Billboard, RIAA and the other folks who need it. With the YouTube artist insight, there's a button in the top right to restrict it to certain countries.

Worldwide, Bieber has been streamed 4.9 billion times on YouTube. In the US, it's only 721 million times.
Worldwide, Michael Jackson has been streamed 3.1 billion times on YouTube. In the US, it's only 445 million times.

So for Biebs, that's an extra 480,876 album sales I think?? (721,314,782/1,500)
Following the same formula, for Michael, that's an extra 296,674 album sales (445,011,297/1,500)

Justin Bieber's latest album, Purpose, has been streamed roughly 2.3 billion times on Spotify worldwide. As far as I'm aware, they only display worldwide statistics publicly (though they do sometimes release country specific ones on their blog, they did something similar a week ago to coincide with the one month anniversary of The Beatles being released on Spotify). Anyhow, with those 2.3 billion streams for Purpose, if they were all from the United States, that would equate to 1.5 million album sales.

However, it's not. Of his YouTube streams, about 14% were from the USA. Because Spotify is available in fewer territories than YouTube (although it's very quickly expanding), let's push that up to 20%. That's ~460 million streams, meaning an extra 306k album "sales" in the USA. Purpose has actually sold 1.3 million copies in the US, so this would push it up to 1.6 million copies. I don't think that's too bad given Bieber's popularity at the moment and for the fact that there are people who would stop buying albums (or at least, purchase far less) simply because it's now available on Spotify. I know I'm not the only one who hasn't bought songs simply because I can stream them on Spotify.

Of course, we then run into problems with long-term albums and artists. Like you said, you wouldn't have bought 2 MJ albums in 2015. So how to incorporate streaming... I'm not entirely sure. Your idea, Respect, seems to be the one I think would work best for now. I wouldn't be against seeing on the Wikipedia article for Purpose: "1.3 million sales [US]. 460 million streams [US]".

 

[HIStory]

I also have a problem with the fact that I don't feel it's transparent at all. When we talked about sales you knew what they were counting, now you have a general idea that they count some streaming services (but maybe not all), they count some YouTube streams but which ones count and which ones don't? Only Vevo counts or others as well? If the latter then what qualifies and what does not? Do unofficial fan uploads qualify? If one counts and another does not how do they decide which one counts and which does not? I am sure they have rules for that but from the outside it all sounds messy and not transparent. And to be honest, pretty manipulatable.

Oh, and can they make sure that fanatics of an artist won't create bots that will spin an artist over and over again to boost his numbers?

YT is pretty messy IMO due to the many unofficial uploads, but even Spotify is somewhat messy. For example, when I look at MJ's account on Spotify there are some songs which numbers are divided in two or three because they count the version that is on Number Ones or Essential seperately from what is on the studio album. For example, Thriller (the song) has around 50-52 million spins on the Thriller album and has another, seperately counted, 10-12 million on Number Ones or Esssential. And this does not seem to be some rule, but pretty arbitrary, because they do that in case of some songs and don't in case of other ones. And it varies from artist to artist to which extent they do it, but it can affect what they will count as streaming number for a particular album and if it's not done in a uniform way in the case of every artist then it will lead to false results.

 

[HIStory]

Pretty sure those are included, so long as YouTube identifies the song plays with it's Content ID scheme. I remember a year or two ago, some high school kid dancing to Billie Jean went viral and that made BJ hit the charts again. I don't believe it was because people were hopping onto iTunes and buying the song, but instead the huuggeee amount of views on that one video.



I think given the way music is consumed and listened to these days, streaming absolutely has to be incorporated into the charts somehow. After all, many people instead choose to spend money on music subscriptions rather than albums themselves. While yes, traditionally charts have been used to track purchases, they have also been used to help identify trends and popularity of music at any given time (as well as over time). Streaming plays heavily into that factor as well as obviously these trends will carry over onto streaming services.

However, the problem with your information, Respect, is that you are incorporating WORLDWIDE statistics. YouTube and Spotify are fully capable of delivering US-only statistics to Billboard, RIAA and the other folks who need it. With the YouTube artist insight, there's a button in the top right to restrict it to certain countries.

Worldwide, Bieber has been streamed 4.9 billion times on YouTube. In the US, it's only 721 million times.
Worldwide, Michael Jackson has been streamed 3.1 billion times on YouTube. In the US, it's only 445 million times.

So for Biebs, that's an extra 480,876 album sales I think?? (721,314,782/1,500)
Following the same formula, for Michael, that's an extra 296,674 album sales (445,011,297/1,500)

Justin Bieber's latest album, Purpose, has been streamed roughly 2.3 billion times on Spotify worldwide. As far as I'm aware, they only display worldwide statistics publicly (though they do sometimes release country specific ones on their blog, they did something similar a week ago to coincide with the one month anniversary of The Beatles being released on Spotify). Anyhow, with those 2.3 billion streams for Purpose, if they were all from the United States, that would equate to 1.5 million album sales.

However, it's not. Of his YouTube streams, about 14% were from the USA. Because Spotify is available in fewer territories than YouTube (although it's very quickly expanding), let's push that up to 20%. That's ~460 million streams, meaning an extra 306k album "sales" in the USA. Purpose has actually sold 1.3 million copies in the US, so this would push it up to 1.6 million copies. I don't think that's too bad given Bieber's popularity at the moment and for the fact that there are people who would stop buying albums (or at least, purchase far less) simply because it's now available on Spotify. I know I'm not the only one who hasn't bought songs simply because I can stream them on Spotify.

Of course, we then run into problems with long-term albums and artists. Like you said, you wouldn't have bought 2 MJ albums in 2015. So how to incorporate streaming... I'm not entirely sure. Your idea, Respect, seems to be the one I think would work best for now. I wouldn't be against seeing on the Wikipedia article for Purpose: "1.3 million sales [US]. 460 million streams [US]".

Yep, those were worldwide numbers and thanks for the US ones, but I don't see how it affects the point I made. Which was rather this:

Actually, Bieber is a good example too why streams cannot be converted into sales by a simple mathematical formula. On streams he is king, he is the most streamed artist on Spotify - due to the nature of his fanbase. But when it comes to sales his sales capacity is around 1.5 million copies in the US of an album. While that is not bad in today's climate it's not the best either. Compare him to Adele. On YouTube the number of Bieber's streams since September 2014 (since YT gives info on that for each artist) is 4.9 billion, Adele's is about 3.5 billion. But on actual album sales Bieber cannot touch Adele. (BTW, MJ is doing extremely well for a veteran artist on streaming services, his number of spins on YT for the same period are 3.1 billion.)

When I said Bieber's capacity of selling an album is around 1.5 million I did not mean his streams from worldwide YT stats but his actual real sales. I went to Wikipedia and saw his latest album sold 1.3 million so far and I rounded that up. It was not a reference to his YT stats.

My bigger point was that while he is the king of streaming he is not the king of actual sales. It's simply that his fanbase is young teen girls who would more use streaming services than some other artists' whose fanbase is older and less fanatical. So because of that it's very difficult to say that streams would necessarily translate into sales if streaming did not exist.

ETA: Well, I checked out. Actually Taylor Swift is the king of streaming. Her worldwide YouTube views are arund 6.5 billion (US: 1.2 billion) . I think that's the most for an artist. Still the point stands, because on actual sales Taylor cannot touch Adele, who however is not that big on YT (worldwide YT streams: 3.5 billion, US: 434 million - less than MJ's, wow). Maybe now Swift will catch up with Adele in certifications due to her streamings. That will be funny. LOL.

 

[HIStoric]

I also have a problem with the fact that I don't feel it's transparent at all. When we talked about sales you knew what they were counting, now you have a general idea that they count some streaming services (but maybe not all), they count some YouTube streams but which ones count and which ones don't? Only Vevo counts or others as well? If the latter then what qualifies and what does not? Do unofficial fan uploads qualify? If one counts and another does not how do they decide which one counts and which does not? I am sure they have rules for that but from the outside it all sounds messy and not transparent. And to be honest, pretty manipulatable.

I think they count so long as the Content ID system on YouTube identifies the song, just like with that Billie Jean/High School performer example I gave above. So yes, unofficial fan uploads can qualify but they would need a decent amount of views to make some impact. Vevo counts, yes.

Oh, and can they make sure that fanatics of an artist won't create bots that will spin an artist over and over again to boost his numbers?

YouTube have very sophisticated bot-measuring tools in place. It's a problem they have had before years ago. In fact I think one reason why uploads often freeze at 301 views is YouTube is verifying that all of the views are real.

YT is pretty messy IMO due to the many unofficial uploads, but even Spotify is somewhat messy. For example, when I look at MJ's account on Spotify there are some songs which numbers are divided in two or three because they count the version that is on Number Ones or Essential seperately from what is on the studio album. For example, Thriller (the song) has around 50-52 million spins on the Thriller album and has another, seperately counted, 10-12 million on Number Ones or Esssential. And this does not seem to be some rule, but pretty arbitrary, because they do that in case of some songs and don't in case of other ones. And it varies from artist to artist to which extent they do it, but it can affect what they will count as streaming number for a particular album and if it's not done in a uniform way in the case of every artist then it will lead to false results.

I think the way it works is that, using your Thriller example, the songs streamed on Thriller will go towards Thriller's sales. The songs streamed on Number Ones go towards Number Ones sales. Even though songs are often 'linked' through different albums, I'm almost certain Spotify would be able to go beyond the giant number on the surface, break down what album they were actually 'listened on', and then deliver these results as per needed. So TWYMMF has 29 million streams over Bad, HIStory, TII, The Ultimate Collection, The Essential and Number Ones. While we the public can't see any data beyond the 29 million statistic, Spotify would be able to see the specific streams for each album, tell Billboard that it was streamed 75,000 times this week from the Number Ones album and Billboard can react accordingly.

My bigger point was that while he is the king of streaming he is not the king of actual sales. It's simply that his fanbase is young teen girls who would more use streaming services than some other artists' whose fanbase is older and less fanatical. So because of that it's very difficult to say that streams would necessarily translate into sales if streaming did not exist.

This is a pretty minor (and even unrelated) point, but Bieber's music isn't really aimed at the young teen girl demographic anymore. If anything, his key demographic is shifting to people my age (~20) and I can say that he has become VERY popular with people my age over the past year. Not to say he isn't still popular with young teen girls, but there's a joke how everyone my age started becoming Beliebers in 2015 after he released his new music, spawning images like this that I've seen reposted on social networks a few times now. Pretty unrelated I know, I just felt like pointing it out that his image and demography has matured somewhat from the "pre-teen" thing.

 

[HIStory]

I think the way it works is that, using your Thriller example, the songs streamed on Thriller will go towards Thriller's sales. The songs streamed on Number Ones go towards Number Ones sales. Even though songs are often 'linked' through different albums, I'm almost certain Spotify would be able to go beyond the giant number on the surface, break down what album they were actually 'listened on', and then deliver these results as per needed. So TWYMMF has 29 million streams over Bad, HIStory, TII, The Ultimate Collection, The Essential and Number Ones. While we the public can't see any data beyond the 29 million statistic, Spotify would be able to see the specific streams for each album, tell Billboard that it was streamed 75,000 times this week from the Number Ones album and Billboard can react accordingly.

Yes, but that's what it makes it unfair. Because like I said, some songs are linked together through all albums while other songs aren't. And in some artists case most of their songs are linked together, while in some other artists case the numbers remain fregmanted between albums. It kind of seems arbitrary. But yeah, maybe Spotify has methods to tell which song was listened to from what album. But then I would not be surprised either if it was kind of arbitrary to which album they will count for example Billie Jean's over 126 million spins - Thriller, Essential or Number Ones or they split it up and if they do based on what?

Another point about the unfairness of it: not all albums have the same lenght and now length will matter big time. Thriller has only 9 songs (or 10.5 if you want to count the Thriller 25 additions - not a full version of Carousel, that's why I said half -, but most of the Thriller 25 additons are pretty useless that will never stream much, interviews with Quincy and Rod etc). For example, I compared it with another constant big seller, Bob Marley's Legend. That album has 16 songs (and on top of that being a greatest hits album). If I count an avarage listen for each song, Thriller actually comes out on top, but it's just about half the length of Legend in terms of number of songs, so overall of course The Legend will collect more streams.

When vinyl was the common way to purchase music albums were generally only had 9-10 songs long. When CDs became the norm albums generally started to have 15-16 songs. Now in this system those longer albums with more songs will have a big advantage over the shorter albums.

So I basically I see a lot of problems with this system that may lead to unfair results.

 

[HIStory]

While I don't agree with this system and IMO it's BS, I think generally it's going to be good for MJ because he streams well.

I think Bad will step up at least two or three million on certifications as well. I think to certify it 10x Platinum just on sales is due anyway and I can see another 1-2x Platinum added for streamings. It does well on Spotify/YT - close to Thriller actually. It's possible that Dangerous too would win at least another additional Platinum this way, even maybe HIStory.

 

[InvincibleMJ]

Listening to a song on the internet doesn't equal buying it. It's closer to radio spins than it is to sales. I think streaming should count, but not with number of copies.

 

[HIStoric]

LOL to the unaware person, it looks like a million people bought it in a month and a half, then suddenly within the span of 24 hours, another million rushed out and bought it

 

[OnirMJ]

This sucks!

Also one thing is Spotify or Tidal were you have to pay for subscription. YouTube should not be counted. YouTube is free. You can't count something that hasn't been sold but given away - like U2 giving their album for free or Jay-Z giving his album for free to Samsung users.

 

[barbee0715]

Listening to a song on the internet doesn't equal buying it. It's closer to radio spins than it is to sales. I think streaming should count, but not with number of copies.

I totally agree. I don't think of Spotify as any different than listening to FM radio. I listened to the radio (stations that played the type of music I loved) all day and night, but bought very few albums when I became an adult. I listen to commercial Spotify only).

And YouTube is so visual. An artist who looks great and dances fantastically would automatically top a singer with a great voice. This isn't right.
I bought Johnny Mathis albums because I love his voice. I don't watch his videos (I think he might have one).

 

[ILoveHIStory]

While I don't agree with this system and IMO it's BS, I think generally it's going to be good for MJ because he streams well.

I think Bad will step up at least two or three million on certifications as well. I think to certify it 10x Platinum just on sales is due anyway and I can see another 1-2x Platinum added for streamings. It does well on Spotify/YT - close to Thriller actually. It's possible that Dangerous too would win at least another additional Platinum this way, even maybe HIStory.

What I have found extremely ridiculous and fishy is the GAP between 1984 -1990 (the big BAD era - album and tour)

REALLY? ONLY 1 MILLION? :fortuneteller:

:doh:

SURE... :hysterical:


And between (the crucial years) 1993 -1997 - 3 MILLION COPIES, 3x PLATINUM.....

:scratch:


... not only by this nonsense, I do believe that the real album sales is far more higher, I dare to say 40 million, only in the USA for Thriller.


... oh, and dont forget... The Eagles GH album miraculously got 25-27-29 platinum, all of a sudden... although almost nobody was aware of the sales of this album in the 80s, 90s and after 2000... abraca-dabra... tied with Thriller.

:baby: :tease:

:bs

But hey....

 

[HIStory]

This sucks!

Also one thing is Spotify or Tidal were you have to pay for subscription. YouTube should not be counted. YouTube is free. You can't count something that hasn't been sold but given away - like U2 giving their album for free or Jay-Z giving his album for free to Samsung users.

Spotify is free too if you put up with commercials. You can update to Premium by paying for a couple of extras and ad-free service.