Album-equivalent unit
Measurement unit in the music industry / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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]