Kanye West has carried the streaming music industry past another milestone. His most recent album, The Life of Pablo, was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). What’s new and different is that it did so through streams only. Pablo wasn’t made available as a digital download on iTunes or other online music stores. It was instead offered as a streaming product through first Tidal, and then Apple Music, Google Play, Spotify, and other services. Pitchfork reported that Pablo has been streamed a staggering 3 billion times, with 1.5 billion of those streams in the U.S. It’s the U.S. figures that earned it Platinum status, and that certification did not include the copies of Pablo sold direct by Kanye. Streaming music—including Apple Music—are clearly the near-term future of the music industry. Earning Platinum certification through streaming only is symbolic of that tidal shift. It’s also further validation for Apple’s investment in Apple Music.
Check It Out: Kanye West Carries Streaming Music Across Another Milestone
The streams, much like the cake, is a lie. Renting for the appearance of having everything, and in the end, you have nothing.
Jamie,
Thoughtful insight. I didn’t get much past the fact that I clearly don’t understand modern musical taste. 😏
PS – sorry for the iPhone grammar. 😉
Yes, but devil’s advocate/pedant time: streams are basically the same as radio plasd. They aren’t the same as sales. This doesn’actually reflect anything given no on could actually buy the album. An experiment: choose a traditional radio station. Listen all day. How many times do they play the same songs? Probably a lot, and if they are being played on even tens of thousands of radios, that is an obscene amount of ‘streams’ in s week. It’s closer to that metric, it’s a seriously flawed equivalency. The truth of the matter is, even in the days of physical albums, most people were not rabid enough fans to explore much beyond popular hits. I don’t personally see that much of anything is different based on these criteria to measure what they are attempting to measure. 😉