# Million selling (gold) records **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [December 5, 2023, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150 "2023-12-05T23:54:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2023, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/1 "2023-12-05T23:54:27Z")
Back in the day - a singer would get a gold record for selling a million copies. How accurate were the counts, and how did they count? Did the record companies produce some kind of certified list of the number of copies of each title produced, and/or the number of copies shipped to stores (or whatever)? Sure - you could produce (or claim you produced) a million copies, with only part of that million actually being shipped and sold (without being returned). Also - it could take years - even decades - to reach the million mark. Is someone still keeping an accurate count of copies sold/streamed/downloaded? According to Guiness, the first million-seller was Enrico Caruso’s " Vesti la giubba" - first recorded in 1902. [First million-selling record | Guinness World Records](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-million-seller-record) (and if you want to hear it - for me, the familiar part is at 1:35). [Enrico Caruso - Vesti la giubba (G&T, November 1902) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq-39I4NbhA) ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/2 "2023-12-06T00:01:19Z")
And the non-certified numbers… [Did “Thriller” Really Sell a Hundred Million Copies? | The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/did-thriller-really-sell-a-hundred-million-copies) ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/3 "2023-12-06T00:58:48Z")
A gold record is 500,000 records sold. One million is a platinum record. > **[RIAA certification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_certification#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DA_Gold_record_is_a%2Ctapes%2C_and_compact_discs%29.?wprov=sfla1)** > > In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) award certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards (see music recording certification). Certification is not automatic; for an award to be made, the record label must first request certification. The audit is conducted against net shipments after returns (most often an artist's royalty statement is used), which includes al A Gol... ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/4 "2023-12-06T11:34:32Z")
I can’t answer of how they count, but I do know that they keep track for a long time. I’ve heard about albums awarded gold or platinum decades after they were released. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/5 "2023-12-06T13:08:24Z")
I would find it weird if record companies didn’t have accurate (to a surprising degree) records of the records being sold. It is their business, after all. The number of copies _produced_ wouldn’t mean a thing, as stuff sitting in warehouses (and ending up in a dump some day) is not sales. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/6 "2023-12-06T15:24:21Z")
I thought so: The award was launched in 1958; originally, the requirement for a Gold single was one million units sold and **a Gold album represented $1 million in sales** (at wholesale value, around a third of the list price). In 1975, the additional requirement of 500,000 units sold was added for Gold albums. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/7 "2023-12-06T20:55:30Z")
It’s probably always been a kind of easy thing to get retailers to report back the sales figures- it benefits everyone to know what’s selling and in what quantity. Maybe it wasn’t quite so immediate in pre-computer, pre-internet days, but I don’t doubt that record stores had a very keen interest in knowing what records were and weren’t selling, and passing that information upward didn’t do anything negative for them- they’d be able to get more to sell, and reinforce the idea that this or that act should have a tour, second album, etc… ---
**Author:** ![2\_More\_Bits](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2_more_bits/32/4148_2.png) [@2\_More\_Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2_More_Bits)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/8 "2023-12-06T22:32:11Z")
It doesn’t necessarily benefit the record label. They may have to pay the performer(s) a portion of the sales price of each record. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/million-selling-gold-records/994150/9 "2023-12-06T22:48:34Z")
Oh my goodness, break out the violins.