Could someone explain this to me...

[DarylR]

Hello guys and gals,

As I'm sure most of you know, there recently was some new RIAA gold and platinum awards announced for a number of Elvis Presley album titles. This currently puts Elvis' album sales (both full length and extended play albums) at 146.5 million. To break it down. It looks like this:

Full Length Albums
54 Gold = 27 million (54 x 500,000)
32 Platinum = 32 million (32 X 1 million)
24 Multi-Platinum = 70 million (varies)
1 Diamond = 10 million (1 X 10 million)

Total = 139 Million

Short Form Albums
6 Gold = 1.5 million (6 X 250,000)
8 Platinum = 4 million (8 X 500,000)
2 Multi-Platinum = 2 million (2 X 1 million)

Total = 7.5 million

Combined total = 146.5 million

My question is this. Why are Elvis' certifications for his extended plays different than the regular full length albums. Why does gold start out at 250,000 for an extended play but for a full length album, it is 500,000. What I also don't understand is why does the RIAA website list short form albums (i.e. extended plays) as needing 500,000 for Gold yet it would seem that Elvis' were certified gold at 250,000. Was there a rule change at some point and if so, when? The R.I.A.A. website indicates that there is some sort of 30 minute rule regarding short form albums. Since Elvis' extended play albums were less than 30 minutes, does that mean that they only needed 250,000 for gold?

I'm just trying to figure out why Elvis' extended plays are certified gold at 250,000 yet the R.I.A.A. indicates on their website that it takes 500,000 for a gold short form album.

DarylR

[erik48]

At the time of the RIAA certification of the Elvis EPs (short form albums) the rules were 250,000 for Gold etc. The RIAA rules have changed at lot of times through the years to reflect changing times and changing bying habits by consumers.

[DarylR]

I believe all of the extended plays that Elvis has certified were done so around March, 1992. Could anyone point me towards when the R.I.A.A. changed the rules for extended plays / short form albums?

[Colin B]

The RIAA awards are not an accurate measure of actual sales.

For example, a record selling 500,000 copies gets a 'gold award'.

But it would still only get that for sales up to 999,999 !

Their total figure of 146.5 million is way off...