The Industry Goes Purple

In the physical record business when you sell 500,000 albums you go “Gold”. Sell a million and you go “Platinum”. But in the age of the Internet less albums are earning these titles every year. What are going to go on the walls of the studios and above the mantles of the pool houses? Thankfully, Yahoo! Music has the answer:

We’re pleased to announce the Purple Award, a heavy, sexy pair of purple headphones given to superstars which manage to achieve 10 MILLION plays on Yahoo! Music. These plays could be from any of our fabulous digital music offerings, Music Videos, LAUNCHcast Radio, or Yahoo! Music Unlimited, or any of our original programs such as Live Sets, SMASH, Who’s Next?, and Get Your Freak On.

But we’re not just giving these away, we’re setting high standards and using a third party to verify the numbers. Since the onset of SoundScan (the music sales charts) and BDS (the song tracking service that makes up the Billboard charts), the music industry has become much more about the real instead of the old-school smoke and mirrors way of trying to fool/hype music fans into believing something is hot when it really isn’t. Even in this new generation of the music industry, other web sites count plays even if you only heard a couple seconds of a song/video before stopping it or navigating to another page. It’s no coincidence that many of the top artists on some social networking sites are scantily clad women as people are going to their pages to look at their pictures instead of listening to their music. We feel it’s imperative to only count a “play” as a song or video that’s been heard/watched for at least 60 seconds. That way we know for sure you’ve heard the core of the song. Anytime you skip a song or video before the one-minute mark, we don’t count it as a play and it doesn’t count towards the 10 million needed to receive a Purple Award. Also, we’re using BDS to count the plays, so all plays are validated by a third party. All on the up and up, baby.

But let’s get on to the part you’re all waiting for, the winners! We’re announcing ten winners from the last year to kick off the award, and will then be announcing winners as they hit the 10 million mark. So here’s our initial batch of Purple:

Akon f/Eminem, “Smack That”

Beyonce’, “Irreplaceable”

Ciara f/Chamillionaire, “Get Up”

Ciara, “Promise”

Evanescence, “Call Me When You’re Sober”

Fergie, “London Bridge”

Justin Timberlake, “SexyBack”

Justin Timberlake, “What Goes Around…Comes Around”

Nelly Furtado, “Say It Right”

Shakira f/Wyclef Jean, “Hips Don’t Lie” 

All the best,
John Lenac
Yahoo! Music