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| Moving Pictures Goes Platinum, 1981 |
With the recent release of
Clockwork Angels which sold over 100,000 copies in the US the first week, one might wonder if this album might be the next studio album to be awarded a Gold Record by the
RIAA. To achieve Gold Record status, an album must sell 500,000 units, a combination of cd, vinyl, digital and cassette sales, so by now
Clockwork Angels must be close to 1/4 of the way to Gold, right?
The last Rush studio album to go gold is
Test For Echo. For the record, here are the
current SoundScan numbers for "sales to date" of the last five Rush albums.
- Counterparts: 788,983
- Test For Echo: 504,504
- Vapor Trails: 358,382
- Feedback: 173,386
- Snakes & Arrows: 323,842
As you can see, while it is common for each studio album to see a great many copies the first couple of weeks of its release, history has shown that they do not stay on the charts for long.
I'm certain that Clockwork Angels will not only go Gold, but will achieve "Platinum" status. All "us" Rush fans must keep requesting different songs on your local Rock Radio stations. Keep in mind that in this suffering economy "Rush" is a "Sound" investment!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is the reason why they considered not making any more albums.Rush only gets minimal airplay and they are old on top of that.
ReplyDeleteI, for one, wonder if the digital sales revolution has forever changed what will and will not achieve gold and platinum status, and how billboard will adjust their ranking system to compensate.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, many people now buy individual songs and not the whole album... Will this lead to individual songs going gold vs the whole album? Also, it is so much easier to copy CDs now compared to how it used to be. Look at the changes that have come about since T4E when we would have had to pony up big bucks for CD burners that took the time it took to PLAY the whole album just to make a single COPY of the album. Now you can rip an entire album in the time it takes to play 1/2 of each TRACK. These two factors for sure have forever altered how these rankings should be viewed, let alone those who pirate full albums from torrent sharing websites. I think Rush has seen their last gold album already, at least by the official numbers. I also think that billboard should grant album sales status for purchase of a single track based on the fact that 10 years ago, you would have boughtte entire album just for the one song. Either that, or start granting songs gold and platinum status.
At least that's my 2 cents worth.
Thank you, drive thru