The first album to be certified diamond
In the early days of vinyl, one of the biggest accolades was securing a gold-certified record. Even though the viral marketing of music has made things a little different, it would have seemed astronomical in the 1960s and ‘70s for an album to reach anywhere close to 500,000 copies. Once the rock and roll craze became more than just a trend, pop music was about to get much more lucrative.
In the early days of the business, gold was the highest certification for a record until artists like the Eagles came around. Although the band might not have been everyone’s cup of tea and the bane of The Dude’s existence, their odes to simple living became the soundtrack of the ‘70s for most music fans, becoming one of the first albums to be certified platinum, estimating a million copies sold.
The record business had become a far-reaching commercial enterprise, and things went through the roof when MTV first graced TV screens worldwide. Instead of traditional methods of seeing a band live, music was being brought into people’s living rooms with the touch of a button, with the biggest acts of the time gaining traction off of their signature music videos. While Michael Jackson and Prince may have profited off the visual medium perfectly, it took a legend of soul music to get an even greater certification.
Fresh out of The Commodores, Lionel Richie would never stop making music. A self-professed workaholic, Richie struck while the iron was hot with his eponymous debut album in 1982, spawning hits like ‘You Are’ and ‘My Love’ on the charts. While he was already a seasoned pro at writing pop songs, there was no way he could have predicted what was to come.
Bringing in the best session musicians in the world, Richie put together 1983’s Can’t Slow Down with the most bulletproof hooks of his career, from the incessant groove of ‘All Night Long’ to the magical energy of ‘Running With the Night’. After a modest success with his debut, Richie became the first musician to have an album certified diamond just two years after its release, in acknowledgement of it selling over 10million copies.
With the business booming, the biggest stars in the world would soon have their own diamond-certified albums, from Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA to Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory. However, Richie was never focused on the raw data that went into his recordings. For him, it was always about the next record, and his follow-up in 1986 brought him even more pop acclaim for tracks like ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ and ‘Say You, Say Me’.
Then again, the pedigree that was behind the scenes was second to none on Can’t Slow Down. Outside of Richie’s voice, the arrangers and writers would go on to become legends in themselves, like David Foster arranging some of Celine Dion’s best work and guitarist Steve Lukather already coming off the soon-to-be massive session work on Thriller by Michael Jackson. ‘The King of Pop’ may have the distinction of the best-selling record of all time, but never forget that Richie beat Jacko to the diamond certification.
