#Jay z 444 single for free#

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer for Salon. Either way, both the man and the albumВ are legendaryВ with or without aВ shiny platinum record in a frame.

That doesn't mean that the rest of us shouldn't raise an eyebrow at the unusual speed and circumstances surrounding that achievement, however, or question whether we should even care. If Jay-Z's latest album has indeedВ been downloaded over 1 million times, then he deserves to be congratulated for reaching that milestone.

Attaching a level of profundity to their significance, and thereby confusing commercial success with more culturally meaningful achievements,В seems more and more pointless. Today,В it's become even more questionable toВ attempt to quantify the inherently unquantifiable - such as the cultural impact of a particular song or album - given that we can clearly see thatВ the numbers here have become even more fungible.В This isn't to say that those financial figures aren't important, but rather that they shouldn't carry weight beyond the boardrooms. Similarly, there are plenty of albums and songs that retained devout followings despite never achieving platinum status, or which took years to take off with their intended market. Now, it's always been easy to suppose that there is a fundamental problem inВ holdingВ platinum status asВ truly meaningful.В There are countless albums thatВ went platinum, stayed on the billboard charts for a few weeks and then quickly faded from our cultural consciousness. In the case of '4:44,' it's noteworthy that, as it had a one-week exclusivity deal with Tidal, it was limited in terms of initial salesВ regardless of whether it achieved platinum status through that medium or not. That said, if doubt can be plausibly raised about the authenticityВ of an album's platinum status, doesn't that suggest that the standard itself is outdated? Indeed, Roc Nation has told Billboard that the platinum status was only given to reflect 1 million downloads, not any of the streams. It certainly doesn't help appearances that the photograph of Jay-Z's platinum plaque presentation was taken before the album was even released.ДЄgain, this doesn't prove that Tidal or anyone artificially inflated Jay-Z's numbers, despite Samsung's previous activities.

#Jay z 444 single for free#

This was what happened withВ Jay-Z in 2013 with 'Magna Carta: Holy Grail,' when SamsungВ bought 1 million downloads and gave them away for free to Galaxy smartphone owners three days before it was released to the general public. In other words, distributors for '4:44' could have purchased the album in bulk - perhaps even more than a million copies of it - and then given it away, thereby allowing it to reach platinum status instantly. Fans participated, took action and downloaded Jay-ZвЂ™s album offered by Sprint.'

As one source told Variety, 'a sale counts toward a certification if purchased directly by the customer - or a business can purchase the album or song and offer it to fans, who must take affirmative steps to acquire the album or song. Interestingly,В '4:44' was first released exclusively to customers of Sprint and Tidal, which raises the possibility that it didn't achieve platinum status due to individual customer purchases alone. 1, 2016, using a formula similar to that of Nielsen MusicвЂ™s whereby 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1В album sale (the organization began incorporating streaming numbers into single certifications in 2013),' Variety writes. 'The RIAA began incorporating streaming numbers into album certifications on Feb. In the same articleВ in which it announced that '4:44' became aВ platinum album (i.e., selling at least 1В million units), Variety explains how the RIAA's method of determining platinum status has evolved in the past several years. Yet doesВ it even matter, as it surely would have only a few years ago? Jay-Z's new, titanic, essential album '4:44' was certified platinum by theВ Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) less than a week after its release.