TuneCore Announces New Sales Awards

I began working at TuneCore a little over a year ago because I was inspired by the idea that with all the seemingly negative changes in the music industry, there were actually more opportunities than ever for artists to pave their own way.  Earlier this week, we unveiled new sales certification awards to recognize that with a new way of selling music, there must also be new milestones to measure sales by.  It is for this reason that we have announced our brand new TuneCore Sales Certification Awards.

In addition to looking extremely cool, the most exciting thing about our first 26 awards is that they are going to both established stars (Jay-Z, Ziggy Marley, Jason Mraz, Public Enemy) and DIY up-and-comers (Meiko, Sky Eats Airplane, Eric Hutchinson and Clear Voyage just to name a few).

 

Below are some artist renderings of these new plaques: 

 

White: 100,000 songs sold certification     

 

 

250,000 songs sold certification

 

 

500,000 songs sold certification 

 

Each sales certification award will be approximately 16" x 19 1/2" and made out of single molded piece of cast resin. The album cover will be raised and inset above the resin under framed glass.  Text will be etched on the glass to create an even deeper dimensionality.

There are going to be three thresholds of songs sold via paid download to be eligible for TuneCore certification and award:

•     White: 100,000 paid download sales
•     Silver: 250,000 paid download sales
•     Black: 500,000 paid download sales

The downloads must come from one album, not from multiple albums. The certification is based on the total number of song sales from that one album. (For example, if an album has 12 songs on it and the album sells 10 times, the number of songs it has sold is 120. The total song sales for that album will be the number of albums sold multiplied by the number of songs on the album PLUS the number of individual songs sold from that same album.) The sales will not be restricted to territory but will take into account paid download sales from around the globe.

You can view the full list of winners here.

Why Sales Awards, Why Now? by TuneCore President Jeff Price.

The world of the music industry is changing and recognition of these changes needs to occur.

As I write this, the RIAA is the one self-appointed entity in the United States that certifies and issues Gold and Platinum records. Currently, to be eligible for the opportunity to have the RIAA issue a Gold/Platinum record, an album, single etc has to have shipped (not sold) 500,000 or 1,000,000 copies. With other options available for global distribution outside of the RIAA members, there are new milestones for success, new ways to sell and buy music and new companies uniquely qualified to verify sales information that the RIAA does not even pick up on. TuneCore is one of these companies.

Three years after our launch, there is more music released via TuneCore in one day then via any major record label over the course of a year. Very soon, more music will have been released via TuneCore than all the major record labels combined. Hundreds of thousands of artists now have their music available around the world to be bought, share and sold. They too deserve to be rewarded and recognized for the achievements.

TuneCore is now certifying and issuing sales awards based on artists reaching new sales goals.

Comments

[poe]

Interesting idea!

Art is not a competition and it's hard to quantify how "good" a song is by sales figures, but good music has a better chance now than ever to make a dent.

Don't necessarily agree with the other post that this will encourage cookie-cutter music -- artists must be responsible for the quality of their work, and the fact that so many have colluded with corporate interests to make bad music hasn't kept others from innovating or making work with integrity.

Nor do I agree with making one of these awards one's primary goal (even though the sales reflected by an award will help pay the rent.)

The goal is to make great stuff, to move people, to evoke and articulate thoughts and emotions through music. Do this and you'll get your award ... though it may take awhile. Records by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen have taken as much as 20 years to be certified gold and platinum.

And that's cool. The point of making music for a living is not to crawl to gold, but to jump through the looking-glass.

[J'Wil of JJS]

I really like this!! I agree with EVERYTHING going digital now, why not have the recognition for it...NOw I have something new to add to my Goals,lol...I want one of those AWARDS!

[Gary Edelburg]

The music industry is only changing to the newer delivery systems. You still reward the top sellers which continues the cycle of musicians recreating music that can compete in that system. So you are still passing out the "Flavor of the Month" awards. There are a great many musicians practicing, recording and playing music that don't fit this format.