Thy Name Is Garth: Only One Country Artist Earned an RIAA-Certified Platinum Album Released in 2016, But Two Others Earned Gold

Posted on January 4, 2017

Recording industry trade organization RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) released its final numbers for 2016, and, as you can imagine, it’s good to be Garth.

The reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year released a nine-album bundle set at Target in November, and each album has been certified platinum by RIAA for 1 million certified units, including Garth’s new studio album, Gunslinger, as well as the eight other albums that were part of the bundle: Cowboys, Midnight Fire, Old School, RPMs, The Covers, The Road, Turn It Up and Anthems.

The RIAA bases its gold (500,000 units) and platinum (1 million units) designations on album sales, song sales, on-demand audio/video song streams, physical album shipments to online and physical retailers and more.

Blake Shelton’s If I’m Honest and Joey + Rory’s Hymns That Are Important to Us are the only two other albums released in 2016 that earned RIAA gold designations for 500,000 units sold.

RIAA Platinum Country Albums of 2016

Gunslinger – Garth Brooks
Cowboys
Midnight Fire
Old School
RPMs
The Covers
The Road
Turn It Up
Anthems

RIAA Gold Country Albums of 2016

If I’m Honest – Blake Shelton
Hymns That Are Important to Us – Joey + Rory

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