SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - NOVEMBER 27: Halsey performs during the 33rd Annual ARIA Awards 2019 at The Star ... [+]
2020 isn’t even two months old yet and already an album that was released this year has reached a milestone that every artist hopes for, and it’s done so faster than many might have expected.
Halsey’s latest album Manic has been certified platinum by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the organization tasked with declaring when a song or an album has made it to gold, platinum or multi-platinum status. This honor means that the singer’s new set has moved at least one million equivalent units in the U.S., combining both pure sales and streaming equivalents.
Albums go platinum all the time, but Halsey’s accomplishment is especially notable because the title was only released a little over a month ago, on January 17. Manic is the first album to be released in 2020 to be certified platinum.
While fans have only been able to buy and stream Manic in full for a few weeks, Halsey has been promoting the set for well over a year, and that lengthy campaign is partially responsible for its near-immediate certification. The pop star released the first single from the project, “Without Me,” back in October of 2018, and since then, she’s doled out several promotional cuts and two additional proper singles. The sales and streams accrued by tracks like “Without Me,” which ended up rising all the way to No. 1 on the Hot 100 and moving millions of equivalent units on its own, have helped the full-length they’re featured on perform so well and earn a platinum plaque so quickly.
Manic is Halsey’s third album and her third to go platinum. None of her releases have managed to advance to multi-platinum status, though they surely will in time. This latest win reached the milestone much faster than her two previous offerings.
Impressively, Manic earns the distinction of becoming the first 2020 album to go platinum before albums that have technically moved more equivalent units, such as Eminem’s Music to Be Murdered By, which came out of nowhere and wound up denying Halsey the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200.
