The RIAA has changed its Gold and Platinum certification rules considerably over the last few years, and rightfully so. In this new age where streaming is becoming one of the primary ways people consume albums, they’ve come up with a few formulas that translate streaming statistics into album sales, so artists, labels and fans can get as accurate a gauge as possible on how albums and songs are performing.
That being said, first-week statistics are a bit more complex now, with both pure album sales and streaming units being taken into consideration. For example, Drake‘s Views moved 1.045 million equivalent album units in its first-week, giving Drake his first-ever 7-day platinum certification. However, only about 850,000 of those moved units were traditional, pure album sales (“only” is relative here; 850,000 is a ridiculous number, and the highest first-week pure album sales mark of Drizzy’s career). The other 160,000 units came from Drake’s streaming performance, which has been reported to be 250 million streams over a 6-day span. The RIAA’s formula decided that figure, 250 million streams, equates to about 160,000 albums sold.
Despite the new rules, it’s still a big deal for an artist to actually sell 1 million copies the traditional way. Earlier this year, when Kendrick Lamar‘s To Pimp A Butterfly album was certified platinum the day the RIAA announced their new equivalent unit formula, Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Anthony Tiffith rejected praise from fans, declaring that until TPAB had sold 1 million traditional copies, he and his team would not be celebrating.
According to ChartNews, Views will be reaching that milestone next week, as it’s slated to snag between 140,000 and 160,000 in pure album sales, which could land Aubrey anywhere between 990,000 and 1.1 million in traditional albums sold. His equivalent number (streaming included) is expected to be roughly 275,000 and 300,000, meaning Views will finish at #1 on the Billboard 200 for the second consecutive week, squeaking past Beyonce‘s Lemonade, which is slated for a 200,000-275,000 equivalent unit performance.