2022 was an unusual year for music. Despite more records being released than ever before, there were only a handful of new hits; Billboard recorded only a dozen new No. 1 singles, while only new 23 albums reached the top of the Billboard 200. Those numbers reflected a dip from prior years, thanks to many of the songs and albums that topped the charts reigning for weeks at a time.
Meanwhile, the Recording Industry Association of America recently welcomed its “class of 2022” — the artists who earned their first Gold or Platinum certification last year. Among the 39 performers are TikTok favorites like Armani White, Bella Poarch, and GAYLE, while runaway success GloRilla stayed “F.N.F.” all the way to her own first certification. International artists also broke in a big way stateside with Afrobeats crooners Fireboy DML and Rema joining K-pop girl group TWICE in racking up the plaques.
Welcome the #RIAAClassOf 2022 Only 3⃣9⃣ artists earned first-time Gold or Platinum awards in 2022. Did your favorite act make the cut? See the full list of artists + #LabelsAtWork: https://t.co/1bxdu4vmWL pic.twitter.com/ErbTt1xrk2
— RIAA (@RIAA) January 5, 2023
A Gold certification denotes 500,000 units sold, while a Platinum record has sold 1,000,000 units. In the streaming era, one album sale is calculated as 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams, which also counts as 10 track sales. In order for a qualifying track or album to be certified, often a label must request certification, so technically there might be one or two songs out there that qualify but were not certified. You can see the full list of singles courtesy of RIAA’s Twitter account below.
There’s nothing like achieving your first Gold or Platinum certification! Congratulations to the 39 artists who broke through in 2022! To see the full #RIAAClassOf list + their #LabelsAtWork, visit: https://t.co/1bxdu4vmWL pic.twitter.com/MsBNXSAjED
— RIAA (@RIAA) January 5, 2023