Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded in 1887, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1990, Columbia recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records. Artists who have recorded for Columbia include Harry Styles, AC/DC, Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, Beyoncé, Dave Brubeck, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, Mariah Carey, The Chainsmokers, The Clash, Miles Davis, Rosemary Clooney, Neil Diamond, Celine Dion, Bob Dylan, Wind & Fire, Duke Ellington, 50 Cent, Erroll Garner, Benny Goodman, Adelaide Hall, Billy Joel, Janis Joplin, John Mayer, George Michael, Billy Murray, Pink Floyd, Lil Nas X, Frank Sinatra and Garfunkel, Bessie Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Andy Williams, Pharrell Williams, Bill Withers, Paul Whiteman, Joe Zawinul The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer and New Jersey native Edward D. Easton and a group of investors.
It derived its name from the District of Columbia. At first it had a local monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington, D. C. Maryland, Delaware; as was the custom of some of the regional phonograph companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own, its catalogue of musical records in 1891 was 10 pages. Columbia's ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Company's breakup. Thereafter it sold only phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced a molded brown wax record, to use up old stock. Columbia introduced black wax records in 1903. According to one source, they continued to mold brown waxes until 1904 with the highest number being 32601, "Heinie", a duet by Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan; the molded brown waxes may have been sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling disc records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their "Toy Graphophone" of 1899, which used small, vertically cut records.
For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its early catalog of artists, Columbia contracted a number of New York Metropolitan Opera stars to make recordings; these stars included Marcella Sembrich, Lillian Nordica, Antonio Scotti and Edouard de Reszke, but the technical standard of their recordings was not considered to be as high as the results achieved with classical singers during the pre–World War I period by Victor, England's His Master's Voice or Italy's Fonotipia Records. After an abortive attempt in 1904 to manufacture discs with the recording grooves stamped into both sides of each disc—not just one—in 1908 Columbia commenced successful mass production of what they called their "Double-Faced" discs, the 10-inch variety selling for 65 cents apiece; the firm introduced the internal-horn "Grafonola" to compete with the popular "Victrola" sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company.
During this era, Columbia used the "Magic Notes" logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia stopped recording and manufacturing wax cylinder records in 1908, after arranging to issue celluloid cylinder records made by the Indestructible Record Company of Albany, New York, as "Columbia Indestructible Records". In July 1912, Columbia decided to concentrate on disc records and stopped manufacturing cylinder phonographs, although they continued selling Indestructible's cylinders under the Columbia name for a year or two more. Columbia was split into one to make records and one to make players. Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, Ed Easton went with it, it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation. In late 1922, Columbia went into receivership; the company was bought by its English subsidiary, the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1925 and the label, record numbering system, recording process changed. On February 25, 1925, Columbia began recording with the electric recording process licensed from Western Electric.
"Viva-tonal" records set a benchmark in tone and clarity unequaled on commercial discs during the 78-rpm era. The first electrical recordings were made by Art Gillham, the "Whispering Pianist". In a secret agreement with Victor, electrical technology was kept secret to avoid hurting sales of acoustic records. In 1926, Columbia acquired Okeh Records and its growing stable of jazz and blues artists, including Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams. Columbia had built a catalog of blues and jazz artists, including Bessie Smith in their 14000-D Race series. Columbia had a successful "Hillbilly" series. In 1928, Paul Whiteman, the nation's most popular orchestra leader, left Victor to record for Columbia. During the same year, Columbia executiv
Ronnie Spector
Ronnie Spector is an American singer. Spector was the lead singer of the rock/pop vocal girl group the Ronettes, who had a string of hits during the early to mid–1960s such as "Be My Baby", "Baby, I Love You", "The Best Part of Breakin' Up". Subsequently, Spector launched her solo career and has since released five studio albums and one extended play. In 1986, Spector experienced a career resurgence when she was featured on Eddie Money's Grammy nominated pop rock song "Take Me Home Tonight" which reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100, she collaborated with multiple other acts. Spector is called the original "bad girl of rock and roll". In 2007, Ronnie and the Ronettes were inducted in the Roll Hall of Fame. Spector was born Veronica Yvette Bennett in New York City, the daughter of an African-American/Cherokee mother and Irish-American father, she and her sister, Estelle Bennett, were encouraged to sing by their large family, as was their cousin, Nedra Talley. All three women became members of the Darling Sisters known as the Ronettes.
The Ronettes were a popular live attraction around the greater New York area in the early 1960s. Looking for a recording contract, they were signed to Colpix Records and produced by Stu Phillips. After releasing a few singles on Colpix without success, they were signed by Phil Spector to Philles Records, their relationship with Spector brought chart success with "Be My Baby", "Baby, I Love You", "The Best Part of Breakin' Up", "Do I Love You?", "Walking in the Rain". The group had two top 100 hits in 1965: "Born to Be Together" and "Is This What I Get for Loving You?" The group broke up in early 1967, following a European concert tour that included their appearance at the Moonlight Lounge, in Gelnhausen, where they entertained American military personnel. The Ronettes were never to reunite until their 2007 induction into the Roll Hall of Fame; the group's last single, "I Can Hear Music", on the Philles Records label, was released in the fall of 1966. Instead of recording on the West coast and her group returned to New York City, their hometown, to record "I Can Hear Music" with producer Jeff Barry.
Phil Spector kept many of the group's unreleased songs in the vault for years. Ronnie's last recording of the 1960s "You Came, You Saw, You Conquered," was credited as "The Ronettes Featuring the Voice of Veronica," appeared in 1969 on Herb Alpert's A&M Records label, with "Oh I Love You", an old Ronettes B-side, as the flip. Only Ronnie's voice was used for the lead and background vocals on "You Came, You Saw, You Conquered". Ronnie's recording and performing career had begun its long hiatus. In February 1971, during Phil Spector's tenure as head of A&R at Apple Records, Spector recorded the single "Try Some, Buy Some/Tandoori Chicken" at Abbey Road Studios, released as Apple 33 in the UK and Apple 1832 in the US; the A-side was written by George Harrison, produced by both him and Spector. Although the single was not a big hit, its backing track was used two years for Harrison's own version of the song, on his chart-topping Living in the Material World album. "Try Some, Buy Some" had another lasting influence when John Lennon recorded "Happy Xmas" the same year and asked Spector to reproduce the mandolin-laden Wall of Sound he had created for Spector's single.
Lennon liked the rockabilly B-side too. Spector recorded other Harrison songs during those London sessions − including "You" and "When Every Song Is Sung" − but her versions were never released though a full album had been planned originally. In the early to mid-1970s, Spector reformed the Ronettes with two new members. In her book, Spector recounted several abortive attempts to recapture mainstream success throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, during which time she was perceived as an oldies act. In 1976, Ronnie sang a duet with Southside Johnny on the recording "You Mean So Much To Me", penned by Southside's longtime friend Bruce Springsteen and produced by Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band; this was the final track on the Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes' debut album I Don't Want to Go Home. She made appearances with the band the following year. Ronnie recorded her first solo album in 1980, produced by Genya Ravan, a prelude to her work with Joey Ramone in the late 1990s. In 1986, Spector enjoyed a resurgence to popular radio airplay as the featured vocalist on Eddie Money's Top 5 hit, "Take Me Home Tonight", in which she answers Money's chorus lyric, "just like Ronnie sang", with, "be my little baby".
The song's music video was one of the top videos of the year and in heavy rotation on MTV. During this period, she recorded the song "Tonight You're Mine, Baby". In 1988, Spector began performing at the Ronnie Spector's Christmas Party, a seasonal staple at B. B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York City. In 1999, she released the album. Joey Ramone appeared on stage with her to promote the record. In 1988, Ronnie and the other members of the Ronettes sued Phil Spector for nonpayment of royalties and for unpaid income he made from licensing of Ronettes’ music. In 2001, a New York court announced a verdict in favor of the Ronettes, ordering Spector t
The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa
The Mission Inn, now known as The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, is a historic landmark hotel in downtown Riverside, California. Although a composite of many architectural styles, it is considered the largest Mission Revival Style building in the United States. Mission Inn Hotel & Spa is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation; the owners are Kelly Roberts. Kelly serves as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of the Mission Inn, overseeing its daily operations; the property began as a quaint adobe boarding house called "The Glenwood Cottage", built by engineer/surveyor Christopher Columbus Miller and on November 22, 1876, the Millers took their first paying guest. In February 1880, Miller's son Frank Augustus Miller purchased the land from his father, it blossomed into a full-service hotel in the early 1900s due to California's economic citrus boom and warm weather, attracting wealthy travelers and investors from East Coast and Europe.
In 1902, Frank changed the name to the "Glenwood Mission Inn" and started building, in a variety of styles, until he died in 1935. Miller's vision for the eclectic structure was drawn from many historical design periods, revivals and styles; some are Spanish Gothic architecture, Mission Revival Style architecture, Moorish Revival architecture, Spanish Colonial style architecture, Spanish Colonial Revival Style architecture, Renaissance Revival architecture, Mediterranean Revival Style architecture. With one section over another, addition upon addition, the result is a complicated and intricately built structure, it contains narrow passageways, exterior arcades, a medieval-style clock, a five-story rotunda, numerous patios and windows, castle towers, minarets, a Cloister Wing, flying buttresses, Mediterranean domes and a pedestrian sky bridge among many other features. During the 30-year construction period, Miller traveled the world, collecting treasures to bring back to the hotel for display.
The St. Francis Chapel houses four large, stained-glass windows and two original mosaics by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1906; the windows were salvaged from the Madison Square Presbyterian Church and the chapel purpose built to house them. The Mexican-Baroque styled "Rayas Altar" is 25 feet tall by 16 feet across, carved from cedar and covered in gold leaf. For his "Garden of Bells," Miller collected over 800 bells, including one dating from the year 1247 described as the "oldest bell in Christendom." In 1932, Frank Miller opened the St. Francis Atrio; the "Famous Fliers' Wall", added by Miller's son-in-law DeWitt Hutchings, was used to recognize notable aviators, including Amelia Earhart. On March 20, 1942, World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker was honored at the Inn, becoming the fifty-seventh flier added to the monument. Today, 151 fliers or groups of fliers are honored by having their signatures etched onto 10-inch-wide copper wings attached to the wall. Frank Miller died in 1935 and the Inn continued under the management of his daughter and son-in-law, Allis and DeWitt Hutchings, who died in 1956.
The Inn went through a series of ownership changes and some of its older rooms were converted to apartments and used as dorms for UC Riverside. In the early 1960s, St. John's College considered buying it as a location for its western campus but abandoned negotiations when John Gaw Meem donated land in Santa Fe; the hotel was acquired by the Carley Capital Group and was closed for renovations in 1985. Newly discovered structural problems cost more than expected and caused the company to fall behind on loan payments to a New York bank; this caused work on the nearly completed hotel to be halted, just weeks before its planned opening in December 1988 as the Omni Mission Inn. In December 1992, the Inn was sold to a Riverside businessman. Roberts completed the renovations and it was reopened to the public shortly thereafter. With its varying styles, the Mission Inn was designed by multiple architects. Frank Miller selected Arthur B. Benton to design the original building. Miller chose Myron Hunt to design the Spanish Wing added to the rear of the main building.
He hired G. Stanley Wilson to design the St. Francis Chapel. Wilson added a rotunda featuring circular staircases and a dome. For 140 years, the Mission Inn has been the center of Riverside, host to U. S. Presidents, celebrities, a number of seasonal and holiday functions, as well as occasional political functions and other major social gatherings. Pat and Richard Nixon were married in what is now the Presidential Lounge and Ronald Reagan honeymooned there, eight other U. S. Presidents have visited the Inn: Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Gerald Ford, George W. Bush. Social leaders who have stopped at the Mission Inn include Susan B. Anthony, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Huntington, Albert Einstein, Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Hubert H. Bancroft, Harry Chandler, Booker T. Washington, Helen Keller and John Muir; the list of entertainers who have toured the Inn is extensive.
Lillian Russell, Sarah Bernhardt and Harry Houdini were early visitors to Frank Miller's hotel. Other guests have included actors such as Ethel Barrymore, Charles Boyer, Eddie Cantor, Mary Pickford, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, W. C. Fields, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Fess Parker, James Brolin and Barbra Streisand, Raquel Welch and Drew Barrymore. Other celebrities such as Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Glen Campbell, Merle Haggard and Tears for Fears have stopped by; the Inn continues to be a getaway for notable individuals to this day. Arnold Schwarzenegger has stayed there d
Kenny Loggins
Kenneth Clark Loggins is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His early songs were recorded with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1970, which led to seven albums recorded as Loggins and Messina from 1972 to 1977; as a solo artist, Loggins experienced a string of soundtrack successes, including an Academy Award nomination for "Footloose" in 1984. His early soundtrack contributions date back to A Star Is Born in 1976, for much of the 1980s and 1990s he was known as the Soundtrack King. Home was released in 2013, shortly after Loggins formed the group Blue Sky Riders with Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman. Loggins was born in Everett, the youngest of three brothers, his mother was Lina, a homemaker, his father, Robert George Loggins, was a salesman. They lived in Seattle before settling in Alhambra, California. Loggins attended San Gabriel Mission High School, graduating in 1966, he formed a band, The Second Helping, that released three singles during 1968 and 1969 on Viva Records. Greg Shaw described the efforts as "excellent punky folk-pop records" that were written by Loggins, to be the bandleader and singer as well.
Loggins had a short gig playing guitar for the New Improved Electric Prunes in 1969 before writing four songs for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that were included on their album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy. During his early twenties, he was in the band Gator Creek with Mike Deasy; the first recorded version of "Danny's Song" was included on their only album, released on Mercury Records. Jim Messina of Poco and Buffalo Springfield, was working as an independent record producer for Columbia Records in 1970 when he was introduced to Loggins a little-known singer-songwriter, signed to ABC-Dunhill; the two recorded a number of Loggins's compositions in Messina's home living room. When Columbia signed Loggins to a six-album contract, recording began in earnest for Loggins's debut album, with Messina as producer. In addition to providing rehearsal space and amps, Messina worked long hours with Loggins and encouraged him to buy an electric guitar to play on his debut album, he assembled The Kenny Loggins Band by summoning his old friends bassist Larry Sims and drummer Merel Bregante, violinist/multireedist Al Garth and multireedist Jon Clarke.
Keyboardist Michael Omartian played on the album, despite dropping out at the start of the touring, continued to play keyboards on the next two albums. Los Angeles-based session percussionist Milt Holland, described by Messina as a "ethnomusicologist" contributed. Messina intended to lend his name to the Loggins project only to help introduce the unknown Loggins to Messina's well-established Buffalo Springfield and Poco audiences, but by the time the album was completed, Messina had contributed so much to the album in terms of songwriting, arrangement and vocals that an "accidental" duo was born. Thus the full name of their first album was Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina Sittin' In; the album's first single release, the Caribbean-flavored "Vahevala", found top 3 success on WCFL on May 18, 1972. Although the album went unnoticed by radio upon release, it found success by autumn 1972 on college campuses where the pair toured heavily. Loggins and Messina's vocal harmonies meshed so well that what was begun as a one-off album became an entity in itself.
Audiences regarded the pair as a genuine duo rather than as a solo act with a well-known producer. Instead of continuing to produce Loggins as a sole performer, they decided to record as a duo, Loggins & Messina. "When our first album,'Sittin' In', came out, we started receiving a lot of excitement about the music and good sales," Messina recalled in 2005. "We had a choice. It was either I now go on and continue to produce him and we do the solo career or we stay together and let this work. For me, I did not desire to go back out on the road. I had had enough of that, I wanted to produce records, but Clive Davis intervened and said,'You know, I think you'd be making a mistake if you guys didn't take this opportunity. Things like this only happen once in a lifetime, it may merit you sleeping on it overnight and making a decision that will be in your best interest.' He was correct. Kenny made the decision as well, it delayed his solo career, but it gave him an opportunity, I think, to have one."Both members of the duo were guitarists: Loggins played rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar and harmonica, Messina played lead guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar and Dobro.
Over the next four years they produced five more albums of original material in the studio, plus one album of covers of other artists' material, two live albums. They sold 16 million records and were the most successful duo of the early 1970s, surpassed in the decade only by Hall & Oates, their work included Lynn Anderson's "Listen to a Country Song,", released in 1972 and reached No. 3 on the charts, Anne Murray's "Danny's Song", "A Love Song", which reached No. 12 in March 1974. A greatest-hits album, The Best of Friends, was released a year; the studio albums found Loggins and Messina more as two solo artists sharing the same record than as a genuine partnership. As they both noted in 2005, their collaboration became more a competition; the pair had by 1976 but amicably parted to pursue solo
Boston Music Hall
The Boston Music Hall was a concert hall located on Winter Street in Boston, with an additional entrance on Hamilton Place. One of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States, it was built in 1852 and was the original home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the hall was converted into a vaudeville theater named the Orpheum Theatre. The Orpheum, which still stands today, was rebuilt in 1915 by architect Thomas W. Lamb as a movie theater; the hall has no connection with Boston's "Music Hall", a theater, now known as the Wang Theatre. The Boston Music Hall was built in 1852, thanks to a donation of $100,000, made by the Harvard Musical Association, for its construction; the Handel and Haydn Society performed at the hall's inaugural concert. The hall was the first home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1881 and was the birthplace of the New England Conservatory of Music; the BSO performed the American premiere of the Piano Concerto No. 1, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky here.
After being threatened by road building and subway construction, the Music Hall was replaced as the home of the Boston Symphony in 1900, by Symphony Hall. In addition to concerts, the hall presented important speakers of the time. Methodist minister Henry Morgan lectured in the hall ca.1859. On December 31, 1862, the eve of the day the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, Northern abolitionists gathered at the Music Hall to celebrate as the clock struck midnight. Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Tubman attended. Oscar Wilde lectured here in 1882; the Boston Music Hall Organ, installed in 1862, was the first concert pipe organ installed in the United States. It was commissioned in 1857 and built in Germany by E. F. Walcker and Company of Ludwigsburg, it was the largest in the US at the time, containing 84 registers. The organ was removed from the Music Hall in 1884 to provide more performing space for the Boston Symphony. Put into storage, the organ was rebuilt and installed by the Methuen Organ Company in the Serlo Organ Hall in Methuen, built to house the organ.
The organ was rebuilt again and augmented by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. Today the hall is known as the Methuen Memorial Music Hall and concerts are presented on the organ, still considered one of the leading instruments in the US; when the Boston Symphony moved to Symphony Hall in 1900, the Boston Music Hall closed. It was converted for use as a vaudeville theater in 1900 and operated under a number of different names, including the Music Hall and the Empire Theatre. In 1906, it was renamed the Orpheum Theatre. In 1915, the theater was acquired by the Loew's Theatres chain and reopened again in 1916, rebuilt with a new interior, designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb. Orpheum Theatre, successor to the Music Hall Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Massachusetts – houses the Boston Music Hall's organ Photos of the Boston Music Hall and Orpheum Theatre at The Boston Historical Society
Music recording certification
Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by nation or territory. All countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories, which are named after precious materials; the threshold required for these awards depends upon the population of the territory where the recording is released. They are awarded only to international releases and are awarded individually for each country where the album is sold. Different sales levels, some 10 times lower than others, may exist for different music media; the original gold and silver record awards were presented to artists by their own record companies to publicize their sales achievements. The first silver disc was awarded by Regal Zonophone to George Formby in December 1937 for sales of 100,000 copies of "The Window Cleaner"; the first gold disc was awarded by RCA Victor to Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in February 1942, celebrating the sale of 1.2 million copies of single "Chattanooga Choo Choo".
Another example of a company award is the gold record awarded to Elvis Presley in 1956 for one million units sold of his single "Don't Be Cruel". The first gold record for an LP was awarded by RCA Victor to Harry Belafonte in 1957 for the album Calypso, the first album to sell over 1,000,000 copies in RCA's reckoning. At the industry level, in 1958 the Recording Industry Association of America introduced its gold record award program for records of any kind, albums or singles, which achieved one million dollars in retail sales; these sales were restricted to U. S.-based record companies and did not include exports to other countries. For albums in 1968, this would mean shipping 250,000 units; the platinum certification was introduced in 1976 for the sale of one million units for albums and two million for singles, with the gold certification redefined to mean sales of 500,000 units for albums and one million for singles. No album was certified platinum prior to this year. For instance, the recording by Van Cliburn of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto from 1958 would be awarded a platinum citation, but this would not happen until two decades after its release.
In 1999, the diamond certification was introduced for sales of ten million units. In the late 1980s, the certification thresholds for singles were dropped to match that of albums; the first official designation of a "gold record" by the Recording Industry Association of America was established for singles in 1958, the RIAA trademarked the term "gold record" in the United States. On 14 March 1958, the RIAA certified its first gold record, Perry Como's hit single "Catch a Falling Star"; the Oklahoma! Soundtrack was certified as the first gold album four months later. In 1976, RIAA introduced the platinum certification, first awarded to the Eagles compilation album Their Greatest Hits on 24 February 1976, to Johnnie Taylor's single "Disco Lady" on 22 April 1976; as music sales increased with the introduction of compact discs, the RIAA created the Multi-Platinum award in 1984. Diamond awards, honoring those artists whose sales of singles or albums reached 10,000,000 copies, were introduced in 1999.
In the 20th century, for a part of the first decade of the 21st, it was common for distributors to claim certifications based on their shipments – wholesale to retail outlets – which led to many certifications which outstripped the actual final retail sales figures. This became much less common once the majority of retail sales became paid digital downloads and digital streaming. In most countries certifications no longer apply to physical media but now include sales awards recognizing digital downloads. In June 2006, the RIAA certified the ringtone downloads of songs. Streaming from on-demand services such as Apple Music, Spotify and Napster has been included into existing digital certification in the U. S since 2013 and the U. K. and Germany since 2014. In the U. S. and Germany video streaming services like YouTube, VEVO, Yahoo! Music began to be counted towards the certification, in both cases using the formula of 100 streams being equivalent to one download. Other countries, such as Denmark and Spain, maintain separate awards for digital download singles and streaming.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry was founded in 1996, grants the IFPI Platinum Europe Award for album sales over one million within Europe and the Middle East. Multi-platinum Europe Awards are presented for sales in subsequent multiples of one million. Eligibility is unaffected by time, is not restricted to European-based artists; the Independent Music Companies Association was founded in 2000 to grow the independent music sector and promote independent music in the interests of artistic and cultural diversity. IMPALA sales awards were launched in 2005 as the first sales awards recognising that success on a pan-European basis begins well before sales reach one million; the award levels are Silver, Double Silver, Double Gold, Diamond and Double Platinum. Below are certification thresholds for the United States, United Kingdom and France; the numbers in the tables are in terms of "units", where a unit represents one sale or one shipment of a given medium. Certific
