Music recording certification

Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see List of music recording certifications).

Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories, which are named after precious materials (gold, platinum and diamond).

The threshold required for these awards depends upon the population of the territory where the recording is released. Typically, they are awarded only to international releases and are awarded individually for each country where the album is sold. Different sales levels, some perhaps 10 times greater than others, may exist for different music media (for example: videos versus albums, singles, or music download).

The original gold and silver record awards were presented to artists by their own record companies to publicize their sales achievements. The first silver disc was awarded by Regal Zonophone to George Formby in December 1937 for sales of 100,000 copies of "The Window Cleaner".

The first literal gold record award was presented to Glenn Miller and His Orchestra by RCA Victor (for subsidiary label Bluebird Records) on February 10, 1942, celebrating the sale of 1.2 million copies of the single, "Chattanooga Choo Choo".

Further examples of company awards are the gold records awarded in 1956 by RCA Victor to Harry Belafonte for his album Calypso for being the first LP record album to sell more than one million copies and Elvis Presley for one million units sold of his RCA Victor single "Don't Be Cruel". Also in 1956, Decca's presented a gold record award to Jerry Lewis for the single "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody".

At the industry level, in 1958 the Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”) introduced its gold record award program for records of any kind, albums or singles, which achieved one million dollars in retail sales. These sales were restricted to U.S.-based record companies and did not include exports to other countries. For albums in 1968, this would require shipping domestically approximately 670,000 units, while for singles the number would be 1,000,000.

In 1976, the RIAA introduced the platinum certification for the sale of one million units for albums and two million for singles, with the gold certification redefined for sales of 500,000 units for albums (singles remained at one million). No album was certified platinum prior to this year. The 1958 RCA Victor recording by Van Cliburn of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto would eventually be awarded a platinum citation, but this did not occur until two decades after its release. In 1999, the diamond certification was introduced for sales of ten million units. In the late 1980s, the certification thresholds for singles were dropped to match that of albums.