Album-equivalent unit
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 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]
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]
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]