please see this article; through 9 months, not one artist album has gone Platinum

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/10/14/one-artist-album-gone-platinum-2014

[Edited 10/16/14 7:52am]

how big a sale for Platinum?


Is platinum = 500,000 copies?



Or a 1.000.000 copies?

thedance said:

how big a sale for Platinum?


Is platinum = 500,000 copies?



Or a 1.000.000 copies?

a million, it's right in the linked article

crazy that megahn trainor # 1 song in country for weeks now scanned only 13K..Tinashe ,new R&B singer for the youngins, plenty of promo , videos , radio play only scanned 18K

This big country star Jason Aldean also "only" sold 280k where his last record solt more than 400k the first week...U2 will sell 25k....

Sales are really down now...

For instance on spotify Prince´s U KNOW has more than 820 000 plays...

I think streaming does hurt sales a lot now...

linus4000 said:

This big country star Jason Aldean also "only" sold 280k where his last record solt more than 400k the first week...U2 will sell 25k....

Sales are really down now...

For instance on spotify Prince´s U KNOW has more than 820 000 plays...

I think streaming does hurt sales a lot now...

I think 'U Know' could have been a hit.

Streaming, leaks, Torrent, this was the first time I was one of the last to hear an album on the Org because the records were so pre-available if you went looking. Prince has a fanbase particularly adept at buying pirated material. There are people have been around for 30 years doing this in the Prince community.

Prince knows this. The industry knows its fighting a losing battle but guess what? Those with the power to sell live shows are going to be the ultimate victors of this decline in the Art Official Age where technology is both your best friend and your worst enemy.

With big promotion they certainly could have performed better, but I think two simultaneous top ten albums is a success. Gold records (500k) are flukes these days. I'm not making an excuse for Prince, it's just the reality of the business in 2014.

cd sales are just about dead...for everyone...two top ten albums with next to no promotion...think he will be happy with that...no airplay and no hits means the albums aint going to hang about long in the charts.

Aerogram said:

Streaming, leaks, Torrent, this was the first time I was one of the last to hear an album on the Org because the records were so pre-available if you went looking. Prince has a fanbase particularly adept at buying pirated material. There are people have been around for 30 years doing this in the Prince community.

Prince knows this. The industry knows its fighting a losing battle but guess what? Those with the power to sell live shows are going to be the ultimate victors of this decline in the Art Official Age where technology is both your best friend and your worst enemy.

Well, bootlegs and pirated material are kind of two different things. You know that, it's kind of unfair to say that when you know, really, the only people that bought and traded bootlegs (pre-internet days) are the people that buy every last little official thing, so it's kind of a crossed message there.

.

More than that, I imagine there are many millennials who grew up in the internet age and have barely bought anything because they're so used to getting it all for free from google - which is surely the biggest pirating gateway out there, even without counting that they own youtube too.

.

Prince got a couple of top ten albums, that's a pretty good accomplishment imo, I consider them a success in that sense. Why you could consider them not to be a success is because they lack what seems to be very important these days, and that's a hit single. That one song that makes it's mark on the pop musical landscape of that month/season/year. And Prince hasn't had one of those in 20 years (Black Sweat almost did it), and I don't think either album contains one either - both albums are good, but neither contains a killer single.

.

.

[Edited 10/17/14 4:44am]

Pharell with his highly successful single Happy only sold 530 000 copies of his "girl" album to this day...

But still....Prince could have sold more than 60 k from AOA with good promotion from himself...

Seems he doesn`t care....

AOA in the Top 10s worldwide and a great record are a big success...

[Edited 10/17/14 4:50am]