fbpx
Wikipedia

Album-equivalent unit

January 19, 2024

The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent,[1] is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy.[2][3] This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditional album sales. The album-equivalent unit was introduced in the mid-2010s as an answer to the drop of album sales in the 21st century. Album sales more than halved from 1999 to 2009, declining from a $14.6 to $6.3 billion industry.[4] For instance, the only albums that went platinum in the United States in 2014 were the Frozen soundtrack and Taylor Swift's 1989, whereas several artists' works had in 2013.[5][6]

The standard of an album-equivalent unit in the United States, according to the RIAA

The usage of the album-equivalent units revolutionized the charts from the "best-selling albums" ranking into the "most popular albums" ranking.[7] The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) have used album-equivalent unit to measure their Global Recording Artist of the Year since 2013.[8]

Terminology edit

 
Prior to digital era, the IFPI counted three physical singles (pictured) as an equivalent of one album.

The term album-equivalent unit had been used by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) long before the streaming era began. Between 1994 and 2005, the IFPI counted three physical singles as an equivalent of one album unit in their annual Recording Industry in Numbers (RIN) report.[9] The term was reintroduced by the IFPI in 2013 to measure their Global Recording Artist of the Year.[8] By this point, the album-equivalent units had already included music downloads and streams.[10] An alternative term of album equivalent unit is sales plus streaming (SPS) unit, which was introduced by Hits magazine.[11]

Use on record charts and certifications edit

United States edit

Beginning with the December 13, 2014 issue, the Billboard 200 albums chart revised its ranking methodology with album-equivalent unit instead of pure album sales. With this overhaul, the Billboard 200 includes on-demand streaming and digital track sales (as measured by Nielsen SoundScan) by way of a new algorithm, utilizing data from all of the major on-demand audio subscription services including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, YouTube and formerly Xbox Music. Known as TEA (track equivalent album) and SEA (streaming equivalent album) when originally implemented, 10 song sales or 1,500 song streams from an album were treated as equivalent to one purchase of the album. Billboard continues to publish a pure album sales chart, called Top Album Sales, that maintains the traditional Billboard 200 methodology, based exclusively on Nielsen SoundScan's sales data.[3] Taylor Swift's 1989 was the first album to top the chart with this methodology, generating 339,000 album-equivalent units (281,000 units came from pure album sales).[2][12] In Billboard's February 8, 2015, issue, Now That's What I Call Music! 53 became the first album in history to miss the top position of the Billboard 200 despite being the best-selling album of the week.[13]

Similarly the Recording Industry Association of America, which had previously certified albums based on units sold to retail stores, began factoring streaming for their certifications in February 2016.[14]

RIAA summary by format, in million copies per year.[15]

500
1,000
1,500
2,000
70s
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
  •   Vinyl
  •   Cassette
  •   CD
  •   Download
  •   Others

In July 2018, Billboard and Nielsen revised the ratios used for streaming equivalent album units to account for the relative value of streams on paid music services like Apple Music or Amazon Music Unlimited versus ad-supported music and video platforms such as Spotify's free tier and YouTube. Under the updated album equivalent ratios, 1,250 premium audio streams, 3,750 ad-supported streams, or 3,750 video streams are equal to one album unit.[16]

United Kingdom edit

In the United Kingdom, the Official Charts Company has included streaming into the UK Albums Chart since March 2015.[17] The change was decided after the massive growth of streaming; the number of tracks streamed in the UK in a year doubled from 7.5 billion in 2013 to just under 15 billion in 2014. Under the new methodology, Official Charts Company takes the 12 most-streamed tracks from an album, with the top two songs being given lesser weight so that the figure will reflect the popularity of the album as a whole rather than of one or two successful singles. The adjusted total is divided by 1000 and added to the album sales figure.[18] Sam Smith's In the Lonely Hour was the first album to top the chart with this rule. Out of its 41,000 album-equivalent units, 2,900 units came from streaming and the rest were pure sales.[17] By 2017, streaming had accounted more than half of album-equivalent units in the UK, according to British Phonographic Industry (BPI).[19]

Germany edit

In Germany, streaming began to be included on the albums chart since February 2016. Nevertheless, the German Albums Chart is used to rank the albums based on weekly revenue, instead of units. Hence, only paid streaming is counted and must be played at least 30 seconds. At least 6 tracks of one album have to be streamed to make streams count for the album, with 12 tracks being the maximum counted. Similar to the UK chart rule, the actual streams of the top-two songs are not counted, but instead the average of the following tracks.[20][21]

Australia edit

The Australian Recording Industry Association, which issues the ARIA Charts, began incorporating streaming into its singles chart beginning in November 24, 2014,[22] and its albums chart beginning in May 13, 2017.[23] ARIA changes the conversion rate regularly, and as of July 2023, one sale is equivalent to 170 streams on a paid subscription service, or 420 streams on an ad-supported service.[24]

Responses and criticism edit

According to Silvio Pietroluongo, vice president of charts and data development at Billboard, album equivalent units methodology "reflects album popularity in today's world, where music is accessible on so many platforms [and] has become the accepted measure of album success."[25] Physical albums have mostly turned into collectors' items as noted by a 2016 poll by ICM Research, which found that nearly half of the surveyed people did not listen to the record they bought.[26]

In Forbes, Hugh McIntyre noted that the usage of album equivalent units has resulted in artists releasing albums with excessive track lists.[27] Brian Josephs from Spin said: "If you're a thirsty (eager for fame or notoriety) pop artist of note, you can theoretically game the system by packing as many as 20 tracks into an album, in the process rolling up more album-equivalent units—and thus album "sales"—as listeners check the album out." He also criticized Chris Brown's album Heartbreak on a Full Moon, which contains over 40 songs.[28]

Rolling Stone columnist Tim Ingham observed the figures of Drake's Scorpion and found that 63% of the album's streams on Spotify came from just three songs off the 25-track album. Additionally, only six songs accounted for 82% of the album's total stream, meaning that only a quarter of the songs determined the overall success of the album in terms of album-equivalent units.[29][30] Cherie Hu from NPR felt that album equivalent units often do not reflect the actual album because they put further weight on an album's biggest single(s) rather than on all the project's tracks as a whole.[31]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Standards". Indian Music Industry. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  2. ^ a b Caulfield, Keith (December 3, 2014). "Taylor Swift's '1989' Returns to No. 1 on Revamped Billboard 200". Billboard. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  3. ^ a b Trust, Gary (November 20, 2014). "Billboard 200 Makeover: Album Chart to Incorporate Streams & Track Sales". Billboard. Retrieved November 20, 2014.
  4. ^ "Why Album Sales Are Down". Speeli. April 2021.
  5. ^ McIntyre, Hugh (October 16, 2014). "Not One Artist's Album Has Gone Platinum In 2014". Forbes.
  6. ^ Sanders, Sam (November 5, 2014). "Taylor Swift, Platinum Party of One". NPR.
  7. ^ Caulfield, Keith (May 22, 2016). "Drake's 'Views' Rules at No. 1 for Fifth Week on Billboard 200 Chart". Billboard. Retrieved July 2, 2016.
  8. ^ a b . International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Archived from the original on March 5, 2014. Retrieved November 11, 2017.
  9. ^ Osborne, Richard; Laing, Dave (December 2, 2020). Music by Numbers: The Use and Abuse of Statistics in the Music Industries. Intellect Books. ISBN 9781789382556 – via Google Books.
  10. ^ . March 5, 2014. Archived from the original on March 5, 2014.
  11. ^ "Rumor Mill - SALES PLUS STREAMING (SPS): THE TOP 25 ALBUMS YTD". HITS Daily Double.
  12. ^ Molanphy, Chris (December 10, 2014). "Why Is Taylor Swift Still #1?". pitchfork.com. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  13. ^ Book, Ryan (February 12, 2015). "Now 53 Outsells Taylor Swift, Becomes First Record to Top Albums Chart but Not Billboard 200; Kid Ink Cracks Top 10". The Music Times. Retrieved July 2, 2016.
  14. ^ Tsioulcas, Anastasia (February 1, 2016). "Forget Selling Albums — Artists Can Now Go Platinum Via Streaming". NPR. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  15. ^ "U.S. Sales Database". RIAA.
  16. ^ Sisario, Ben (July 9, 2018). "The Music Industry's Math Changes, but the Outcome Doesn't: Drake Is No. 1". The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  17. ^ a b Sexton, Paul (March 2, 2015). "Sam Smith's 'In the Lonely Hour' Tops Historic U.K. Albums Chart". Billboard. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  18. ^ Copsey, Rob (February 11, 2015). "Official Albums Chart to include streaming data for first time". The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  19. ^ Butler, Sarah (January 3, 2018). "Digital streaming behind biggest rise in UK music sales for two decades" – via www.theguardian.com.
  20. ^ Potzel, Andreas (February 1, 2016). "Deutsche Album-Charts integrieren Premium-Streaming" [German album charts integrate premium streaming] (in German). Musikmarkt.de. Archived from the original on February 1, 2016. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  21. ^ Briegleb, Volker (February 1, 2016). "Deutsche Album-Charts jetzt auch mit Streaming-Zahlen" [German album charts now with streaming numbers]. heise online (in German). Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  22. ^ White, Dominic (November 5, 2014). "ARIA to include streaming in charts". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  23. ^ "Audio streams to be integrated into ARIA Albums Chart". Australian Recording Industry Association. May 4, 2017. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  24. ^ Briggs, Casey (July 9, 2023). "The number of Australian musicians in the local charts has plummeted. Why?". ABC News. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  25. ^ "Billboard's Genre Album Charts Will Now Incorporate Streams & Track Sales". Billboard.
  26. ^ "Music streaming boosts sales of vinyl". BBC News. April 14, 2016.
  27. ^ McIntyre, Hugh (August 17, 2017). . Forbes. Archived from the original on July 5, 2018. Retrieved August 5, 2018.
  28. ^ Josephs, Brian (May 2, 2017). "Why Does Chris Brown's New Album Have 40 Songs?". Spin. Retrieved August 5, 2018.
  29. ^ Ingham, Tim (November 9, 2018). "The Album Is in Deep Trouble - and the Music Business Probably Can't Save it". Rolling Stone.
  30. ^ "Is the album format irrelevant in the digital age?". March 1, 2019.
  31. ^ Hu, Cherie (January 14, 2020). "The Past Year, And Decade, In Music Listening: Video Rules, The Boy's Club Remains". NPR.org.

January 19, 2024
album, equivalent, unit, album, equivalent, unit, album, equivalent, measurement, unit, music, industry, define, consumption, music, that, equals, purchase, album, copy, this, consumption, includes, streaming, song, downloads, addition, traditional, album, sal. The album equivalent unit or album equivalent 1 is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy 2 3 This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditional album sales The album equivalent unit was introduced in the mid 2010s as an answer to the drop of album sales in the 21st century Album sales more than halved from 1999 to 2009 declining from a 14 6 to 6 3 billion industry 4 For instance the only albums that went platinum in the United States in 2014 were the Frozen soundtrack and Taylor Swift s 1989 whereas several artists works had in 2013 5 6 The standard of an album equivalent unit in the United States according to the RIAAThe usage of the album equivalent units revolutionized the charts from the best selling albums ranking into the most popular albums ranking 7 The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry IFPI have used album equivalent unit to measure their Global Recording Artist of the Year since 2013 8 Contents 1 Terminology 2 Use on record charts and certifications 2 1 United States 2 2 United Kingdom 2 3 Germany 2 4 Australia 3 Responses and criticism 4 See also 5 ReferencesTerminology edit nbsp Prior to digital era the IFPI counted three physical singles pictured as an equivalent of one album The term album equivalent unit had been used by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry IFPI long before the streaming era began Between 1994 and 2005 the IFPI counted three physical singles as an equivalent of one album unit in their annual Recording Industry in Numbers RIN report 9 The term was reintroduced by the IFPI in 2013 to measure their Global Recording Artist of the Year 8 By this point the album equivalent units had already included music downloads and streams 10 An alternative term of album equivalent unit is sales plus streaming SPS unit which was introduced by Hits magazine 11 Use on record charts and certifications editUnited States edit Beginning with the December 13 2014 issue the Billboard 200 albums chart revised its ranking methodology with album equivalent unit instead of pure album sales With this overhaul the Billboard 200 includes on demand streaming and digital track sales as measured by Nielsen SoundScan by way of a new algorithm utilizing data from all of the major on demand audio subscription services including Spotify Apple Music Google Play YouTube and formerly Xbox Music Known as TEA track equivalent album and SEA streaming equivalent album when originally implemented 10 song sales or 1 500 song streams from an album were treated as equivalent to one purchase of the album Billboard continues to publish a pure album sales chart called Top Album Sales that maintains the traditional Billboard 200 methodology based exclusively on Nielsen SoundScan s sales data 3 Taylor Swift s 1989 was the first album to top the chart with this methodology generating 339 000 album equivalent units 281 000 units came from pure album sales 2 12 In Billboard s February 8 2015 issue Now That s What I Call Music 53 became the first album in history to miss the top position of the Billboard 200 despite being the best selling album of the week 13 Similarly the Recording Industry Association of America which had previously certified albums based on units sold to retail stores began factoring streaming for their certifications in February 2016 14 RIAA summary by format in million copies per year 15 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 70s 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 Vinyl Cassette CD Download Others In July 2018 Billboard and Nielsen revised the ratios used for streaming equivalent album units to account for the relative value of streams on paid music services like Apple Music or Amazon Music Unlimited versus ad supported music and video platforms such as Spotify s free tier and YouTube Under the updated album equivalent ratios 1 250 premium audio streams 3 750 ad supported streams or 3 750 video streams are equal to one album unit 16 United Kingdom edit In the United Kingdom the Official Charts Company has included streaming into the UK Albums Chart since March 2015 17 The change was decided after the massive growth of streaming the number of tracks streamed in the UK in a year doubled from 7 5 billion in 2013 to just under 15 billion in 2014 Under the new methodology Official Charts Company takes the 12 most streamed tracks from an album with the top two songs being given lesser weight so that the figure will reflect the popularity of the album as a whole rather than of one or two successful singles The adjusted total is divided by 1000 and added to the album sales figure 18 Sam Smith s In the Lonely Hour was the first album to top the chart with this rule Out of its 41 000 album equivalent units 2 900 units came from streaming and the rest were pure sales 17 By 2017 streaming had accounted more than half of album equivalent units in the UK according to British Phonographic Industry BPI 19 Germany edit In Germany streaming began to be included on the albums chart since February 2016 Nevertheless the German Albums Chart is used to rank the albums based on weekly revenue instead of units Hence only paid streaming is counted and must be played at least 30 seconds At least 6 tracks of one album have to be streamed to make streams count for the album with 12 tracks being the maximum counted Similar to the UK chart rule the actual streams of the top two songs are not counted but instead the average of the following tracks 20 21 Australia edit The Australian Recording Industry Association which issues the ARIA Charts began incorporating streaming into its singles chart beginning in November 24 2014 22 and its albums chart beginning in May 13 2017 23 ARIA changes the conversion rate regularly and as of July 2023 update one sale is equivalent to 170 streams on a paid subscription service or 420 streams on an ad supported service 24 Responses and criticism editAccording to Silvio Pietroluongo vice president of charts and data development at Billboard album equivalent units methodology reflects album popularity in today s world where music is accessible on so many platforms and has become the accepted measure of album success 25 Physical albums have mostly turned into collectors items as noted by a 2016 poll by ICM Research which found that nearly half of the surveyed people did not listen to the record they bought 26 In Forbes Hugh McIntyre noted that the usage of album equivalent units has resulted in artists releasing albums with excessive track lists 27 Brian Josephs from Spin said If you re a thirsty eager for fame or notoriety pop artist of note you can theoretically game the system by packing as many as 20 tracks into an album in the process rolling up more album equivalent units and thus album sales as listeners check the album out He also criticized Chris Brown s album Heartbreak on a Full Moon which contains over 40 songs 28 Rolling Stone columnist Tim Ingham observed the figures of Drake s Scorpion and found that 63 of the album s streams on Spotify came from just three songs off the 25 track album Additionally only six songs accounted for 82 of the album s total stream meaning that only a quarter of the songs determined the overall success of the album in terms of album equivalent units 29 30 Cherie Hu from NPR felt that album equivalent units often do not reflect the actual album because they put further weight on an album s biggest single s rather than on all the project s tracks as a whole 31 See also edit nbsp Record production portalAlbum salesReferences edit Standards Indian Music Industry Retrieved August 27 2022 a b Caulfield Keith December 3 2014 Taylor Swift s 1989 Returns to No 1 on Revamped Billboard 200 Billboard Retrieved July 1 2016 a b Trust Gary November 20 2014 Billboard 200 Makeover Album Chart to Incorporate Streams amp Track Sales Billboard Retrieved November 20 2014 Why Album Sales Are Down Speeli April 2021 McIntyre Hugh October 16 2014 Not One Artist s Album Has Gone Platinum In 2014 Forbes Sanders Sam November 5 2014 Taylor Swift Platinum Party of One NPR Caulfield Keith May 22 2016 Drake s Views Rules at No 1 for Fifth Week on Billboard 200 Chart Billboard Retrieved July 2 2016 a b Global Recording Artist of the Year International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Archived from the original on March 5 2014 Retrieved November 11 2017 Osborne Richard Laing Dave December 2 2020 Music by Numbers The Use and Abuse of Statistics in the Music Industries Intellect Books ISBN 9781789382556 via Google Books One Direction are officially the biggest global recording artists of 2013 March 5 2014 Archived from the original on March 5 2014 Rumor Mill SALES PLUS STREAMING SPS THE TOP 25 ALBUMS YTD HITS Daily Double Molanphy Chris December 10 2014 Why Is Taylor Swift Still 1 pitchfork com Retrieved July 1 2016 Book Ryan February 12 2015 Now 53 Outsells Taylor Swift Becomes First Record to Top Albums Chart but Not Billboard 200 Kid Ink Cracks Top 10 The Music Times Retrieved July 2 2016 Tsioulcas Anastasia February 1 2016 Forget Selling Albums Artists Can Now Go Platinum Via Streaming NPR Retrieved February 21 2019 U S Sales Database RIAA Sisario Ben July 9 2018 The Music Industry s Math Changes but the Outcome Doesn t Drake Is No 1 The New York Times Retrieved September 25 2018 a b Sexton Paul March 2 2015 Sam Smith s In the Lonely Hour Tops Historic U K Albums Chart Billboard Retrieved July 1 2016 Copsey Rob February 11 2015 Official Albums Chart to include streaming data for first time The Official UK Charts Company Retrieved July 1 2016 Butler Sarah January 3 2018 Digital streaming behind biggest rise in UK music sales for two decades via www theguardian com Potzel Andreas February 1 2016 Deutsche Album Charts integrieren Premium Streaming German album charts integrate premium streaming in German Musikmarkt de Archived from the original on February 1 2016 Retrieved July 1 2016 Briegleb Volker February 1 2016 Deutsche Album Charts jetzt auch mit Streaming Zahlen German album charts now with streaming numbers heise online in German Retrieved July 1 2016 White Dominic November 5 2014 ARIA to include streaming in charts The Sydney Morning Herald Retrieved July 9 2023 Audio streams to be integrated into ARIA Albums Chart Australian Recording Industry Association May 4 2017 Retrieved July 9 2023 Briggs Casey July 9 2023 The number of Australian musicians in the local charts has plummeted Why ABC News Retrieved July 9 2023 Billboard s Genre Album Charts Will Now Incorporate Streams amp Track Sales Billboard Music streaming boosts sales of vinyl BBC News April 14 2016 McIntyre Hugh August 17 2017 How Longer Albums And Streaming Giants Are Manipulating The Charts Forbes Archived from the original on July 5 2018 Retrieved August 5 2018 Josephs Brian May 2 2017 Why Does Chris Brown s New Album Have 40 Songs Spin Retrieved August 5 2018 Ingham Tim November 9 2018 The Album Is in Deep Trouble and the Music Business Probably Can t Save it Rolling Stone Is the album format irrelevant in the digital age March 1 2019 Hu Cherie January 14 2020 The Past Year And Decade In Music Listening Video Rules The Boy s Club Remains NPR org Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Album equivalent unit amp oldid 1164493553, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.