New CD Certified Gold

Post by **phjim** » January 3, 2007 7:20 am

From CMT: Jimmy Buffett's latest album "Take the Weather With You" has been certified gold for shipments of 500,000 copies. The album debuted at No. 1 on the country sales chart last year. The album includes "Bama Breeze" and a cover of Merle Haggard's "Silver Wings." Buffett also co-wrote (with former drummer Matt Betton) "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On," about the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina. Buffett turned 60 on Christmas Day and celebrated New Year's Eve on the Caribbean island of St. Bart's.

JustDucky · Post by **JustDucky** » January 3, 2007 11:05 pm

Shipments of 500,000? I thought with SoundScan it was based strictly on sales. Before SoundScan a lot of records went gold and platinum based on shipments, not sales. Which means there are probably a lot of falsely certified records out there!

triathlete-parakeet · Post by **triathlete-parakeet** » January 4, 2007 6:16 pm

I am suprised by this. My uncle and aunt who are huge parrotheads didnt even know about the knew album.

Quiet and Shy · Post by **Quiet and Shy** » January 5, 2007 1:07 pm

I'm surprised CMT didn't mention "Everybody's On the Phone" in their coverage as this is supposed to be the currently released single.

Tiki Torches · Post by **Tiki Torches** » January 5, 2007 1:31 pm

This defies the logic that Buffett shouldn't play halftime at the Super Bowl (like that's some sort of achievement to be proud of anyway) since no one knows who he is.

cartmill72 · Post by **cartmill72** » January 6, 2007 11:07 am

JustDucky wrote:Shipments of 500,000? I thought with SoundScan it was based strictly on sales. Before SoundScan a lot of records went gold and platinum based on shipments, not sales. Which means there are probably a lot of falsely certified records out there!

SoundScan was implemented to better track actual sales in 1990 or 1991. Billboard and most of the other charts are based on SoundScan data. This means the charts from the 1990s forward better reflect what people are actually buying.

The RIAA, however, bases their Gold and Platinum awards on units shipped - not units sold. So, for example, TTWWY could have shipped 600,000 units and received Gold certification, yet only sold 250,000 copies.

As for your presumption there may be some falsely certified records out there, it is possible. But since the Gold and Platinum awards are based on shipments and measured over a long period of time, sales really never did factor into the certification process anyway.

I'm more hesitant to believe sales figures of albums like Michael Jackson's Thriller. There are claims that album has sold between 27 and 37 million copies in the United States. Yet, RIAA has only certified it for 27 million units shipped. There was probably a lot of false sales reporting going on in 1983 when that album was hot.

Whatever the case, good for Jimmy! It's always impressive when you hear Jimmy Buffett has 17 Gold awards, 9 Platinum awards and 3 Multi-Platinum awards.