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June was a record month for RIAA gold and platinum certifications, and chances are even the most casual music fan would recognize the top honorees.
The Black Eyed Peas become the first group to have a digital single go eight times platinum with “I Gotta Feeling.” Their 22 million career certified d-singles are the most of any group.
STORY: Gotye Releasing 10 ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ Remixes on 1 Album
Meanwhile, Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” which spent eight weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 this year, becomes the fastest digital song to reach quintuple-platinum status, selling 5 million downloads in less than six months of release.
A pair of female pop megastars also mined heavy metal with their albums in June. Nicki Minaj scored her second platinum platter with Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, and Carrie Underwood struck gold with Blown Away. It’s the 2005 American Idol winner’s fourth gold album.
VIDEO: Nicki Minaj Debuts Sexy Video for ‘Beez in the Trap’
Fans of the late Whitney Houston continue to snap up her albums. Whitney: The Greatest Hits reached the five-times-platinum level. That brings her combined U.S. album count past 57 million, moving her past Van Halen to become the 19th-biggest-selling act of all time in the U.S.
Elsewhere, a pair of rising acts scored their first platinum album as Florence + The Machine’s 2009 debut Lungs – which earned the group a best new artist Grammy nomination — and Eric Church’s 2011 third disc Chief hit the mark. Church’s “Springsteen,” a No. 1 country single that crossed over to the pop Top 20, also was certified platinum.
In all, the RIAA certified 61 digital singles and 12 albums as gold or platinum during June.z
Watch a live version of “I Gotta Feeling” below.
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