370,000.
That is the number of ‘ANTI’ albums Rihanna has managed to has sell since Samsung threw her a lifeline by buying and re-distributing 1 million units of the LP for free back in January.
Said stunt raised eyebrows in earnest when the set was almost immediately certified Platinum – an honor (prior to then) reserved for albums that had sold 1 million.
Today, the narrative grows more bizaare after it was revealed that ‘ANTI’ has somehow been certified x2 Platinum.
Details below…
Moments ago the RIAA confirmed the news, tweeting…
The achievement (if it can even be called that) will further ignite debate about the weighting and validity of digital streaming – a format Rih excels on.
Because, in the absence of respectable sales, ‘ANTI’ has been a streaming beast on services such as Spotify – which has a free tier. A fact which has helped lift the LP to such status now that streams are factored into certifications.
For us, it remains the muckiest of messes.
Call us old fashioned, but how (or better yet, why) should an album that is barely selling be bestowed honors that greatly blur the reality of its commercial standing? What’s more, pressing for x2 Platinum when the first “million” remains questionable feels like toying with reality a bit too much.
Yes, it’s factual that streaming has become one of the primary means of music consumption. But if the girls of the world can stream the likes of Taylor Swift and Drake and still buy their product, what is the disconnect with Rih?