Constructing a wall stuffed with gold and platinum albums was once a requisite a part of the rock star expertise. However for a wide range of causes, it is getting lots tougher for traditional rock artists so as to add to their collections these days.
Beneath you’ll discover an inventory of the final time rock’s greatest acts earned a platinum plaque by promoting over a million copies of a brand new studio album. (We’re not counting “nice hits”-type compilations or field units.)
The shift from bodily to digital distribution is the largest motive for this modification. Based on the World Financial Discussion board, within the ten years following the 2001 arrival of Apple’s iPod, bodily music gross sales declined by greater than 60 p.c. This eradicated an estimated $14 million in annual income, and changed it with simply $4 million in digital music gross sales. Streaming providers comparable to Spotify (which launched in the US in 2011), YouTube and Apple Music have now change into the trade’s dominant supply of revenue, accounting for two-thirds of all gross sales in 2022.
The RIAA – which certifies and awards gold, platinum and diamond awards for gross sales of 500,000, a million and ten million copies respectively – has made a plan to account for digital gross sales. Nevertheless it takes 1,500 streams to rely for one album sale. So to earn a platinum album strictly from streaming, it must generate 1.5 billion streams.
In current a long time, most of rock’s greatest and longest-running acts have dramatically slowed down the speed at which they launch new albums, maybe partially due to the diminished revenue they generate. For instance, AC/DC launched 5 albums in each the ’70s and ’80s, however simply two every within the ’90s and ’00s, and solely two extra to this point after that.
The times of even the largest rock artists getting radio assist to advertise their new albums is lengthy gone, as traditional rock stations have nearly utterly deserted the notion of including present songs to their playlists, even from artists whose well-known songs dominate their playlists.
The tip results of all of that is rock’s greatest bands placing out fewer new albums, promoting much less copies of these albums, and subsequently not incomes almost as many plaques for his or her trophy rooms. We searched the RIAA website for the certification histories from 30 of rock’s greatest just lately lively artists to learn how lengthy its been since they earned a brand new platinum gross sales award.
One necessary disclaimer: Since artists should request – and pay for – the certification audit course of from the RIAA, it is fairly attainable the numbers listed aren’t utterly updated. Utilizing AC/DC for example once more, it appears that evidently their most up-to-date spherical of certifications passed off in December 2019, at which era 1980’s Again in Black was credited for gross sales of 25 million copies. It is most definitely that album has bought an extra million copies or extra prior to now 5 years, as one instance. So theoretically it is attainable that newer albums from a few of these artists have bought one million copies however haven’t been submitted for certification.
The Final Time Rock’s 30 Greatest Acts Earned a Platinum Album
It is lots tougher for rock stars to cowl their partitions with award plaques currently.
Gallery Credit score: Matthew Wilkening
