We have all heard the terms, “his album has gone gold”, “her single has hit platinum” etc, but what does it mean?
Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond are names give to the various levels of achievement an artist reaches in the sales of his or her album or single. The RIAA governs these standards, which have been adopted by many countries in order to ratify their own music industries. The standards are generally percentage-based meaning that the number of sales an artist has to make to get Gold in the U.S. is not the same in the Philippines. This is fair and accepted by all parties involved.
The first ever Gold was awarded to Glen Miller for his hit single “Chattanooga Choo Choo” all the way back in 1942. As was the custom at that time, the award was bestowed to him by RCA, his own record company. The first Gold for an album only came in 1957, given to Harry Belafonte for “Calypso”. Both these achievements came as the artists hit one million records in sales.
The RIAA’s involvement came into being only in 1958, and their first award of Gold went to Perry Como that year for “Catch a Falling Star”, his hit single. In the same year, “Oklahoma” was the first Gold-certified album. The measurement by which the awards are handed out has fluctuated over the years between the number of units sold and the total value in retail sales. However, it seems to have settled on total volume shipped in recent times. Certification these days takes into consideration many new media including Ringtones and so on and so forth.