Despite a glut of great Australian album releases this year, with everyone from Kingswood to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard unveiling full-length efforts, no album by an Australian artist has gone platinum this year. In fact, only two artist albums, i.e. not a compilation or a soundtrack, released in 2014 have managed to hit platinum this year, down significantly from last year.
According to the ARIA Accreditation chart for 2014, based on sales from ARIA members both wholesale and retail, Coldplay’s Ghost Stories and fellow Brit Ed Sheeran’s X are the only 2014 albums to have reached the much-coveted platinum mark this year.
The only other albums to reach platinum this year are the compilations So Fresh: The Hits Of Autumn 2014, So Fresh: The Hits Of Winter 2014, and Triple J Hottest 100 – Volume 21. This is based on data that is current as of 30th September 2014.
Comparing this to the list of 2013 ARIA Accreditations, current as of 31st December 2013, a concerning picture begins to form. A total of 16 artist albums released in 2013 went platinum the same year, including eight by Australian artists. The number is even bigger when accounting for compilations.
Among the top-sellers was Katy Perry’s Prism, the only 2013 album to reach 2x platinum during its year of release, Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Lorde’s Pure Heroine, One Direction’s Midnight Memories, and Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz.
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The Aussies who hit it big include Dami Im with her self-titled second album, Human Nature with The Christmas Album, Keith Urban with Fuse, Tina Arena and Reset, Harrison Craig and More Than A Dream, and Adam Harvey & Troy Cassar-Daley with The Great Country Songbook.
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Over in the States, things aren’t looking much better. As Forbes reports, not one artist’s album has managed to hit platinum in 2014. While the fourth quarter is typically when most sales occur, US sales numbers have never looked so grim.
Just one album has managed to sell over a million copies during 2014, the ever-popular soundtrack to the Disney film Frozen. Despite a lack of big names, the soundtrack has managed to shift 3.2 million units so far, with sales set to rise during the US winter sales rush.
Trailing behind the Frozen soundtrack are Beyonce’s surprise self-titled album and Lorde’s Pure Heroine. Each was released in 2013 and has moved somewhere in the area of 750,000 units so far this year.
Sitting about 20,000 units behind Lorde at number four is country singer Erich Church’s album Outsiders, the first appearance from an album released this year. Coming in at a close fifth is Coldplay with Ghost Stories.
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To put this in context, by this time last year, five different CDs had sold one million units or more, with Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience in front. That album had moved 2.3 million copies by the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2013, still considerably less than Frozen.
Of course, it’s important to note that platinum accreditation in the US occurs after shifting one million units, whereas ARIA award platinum accreditation after an album moves 70,000 units, as accreditation is adjusted for the size of the consumer base.
Things look a little brighter when we look at the sales numbers for singles. According to figures provided by the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia, 19 singles have hit platinum this year, while 20 singles total achieved platinum accreditation in 2013.
Comparatively, 60 songs have sold one million or more copies in the US this year, unsurprising in an age when having a beloved single doesn’t mean having to purchase the entire album. However, 83 songs went platinum Stateside last year, indicating digital single sales are beginning to slip, likely cannibalised by streaming.
So that’s 16 albums that hit platinum last year, including eight by Aussie artists, and two this year, with neither by an Australian. We’ll leave it up to readers to determine what the statistics mean, but one thing is clear: as much as we love our Aussie artists, we’re not all that willing to spend our cash on them.
