The British Phonographic Industry has altered its sales award rules to include automatic certification — big news for classic acts such as the Beatles.
The BPI will now include automatically-updated sales data for the first time in its history, as per a release on the industry’s website. Once an album surpasses the mark necessary for gold or platinum status, it will automatically garner the achievement from the BPI.
Before, a record label had to make a formal request for a gold or platinum award for one of its albums.
“These changes form part of a wider and ongoing review of how artist achievements in sales should be acknowledged and celebrated going forward, and further announcements will made in due course,” a statement on the BPI’s website read.
The change means that certain albums like those from the Beatles will finally achieve platinum status, the BBC reports.
The BPI system originally went in place in 1973, three years after the British rock band’s dissolution.
However, album sales have only been counted since 1994 by the Official Charts Company, meaning that only purchases made since that year will count toward the BPI’s automatic certification.
According to the BBC, that means the band’s “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” released in 1967, is now triple-platinum, while “Revolver,” “Help,” “Rubber Soul” and “The White Album” have achieved platinum status.
