Ticket to Ride, Passage, Made in America gold status yet?

Also, this, from the Official Carpenter Web Site:
"..These titles, along with the next single Sweet, Sweet Smile, were culled from the album ‘Passage’ which attained gold status."

It may have achieved "gold status" somewhere in the world. Every country has different sales levels for gold certification. In the US (RIAA), gold is 500,000 copies. In the UK (BPI), gold is 100,000. In Japan (RIAJ), it's 100,000. In Australia (ARIA), it's 35,000. In some smaller countries, it can be as few as 2,000 or 3,000.

Passage received a silver certification (60,000 copies) in the UK on March 10, 1978.

To date, it has not been certified in the United States.
 
from the Official Carpenter Web Site:
"..These titles, along with the next single Sweet, Sweet Smile, were culled from the album ‘Passage’ which attained gold status

Just because something is on a website doesn't make it true. Also artists' hype machines tend to exaggerate the facts a little. And artists themselves can go a bit overboard as well -- in one of his interviews, our favorite trumpet player referred to "Spanish Flea" as a "number one record" when it never actually attained that status.

(Well unless it was on the "easy listening" chart or some such, but not on the big Hot 100 chart.)
 
Mike, point well taken, and--of course--I concur.
That being said, any one source--taken on its own--with no corroborating documentation,
can only serve as indication to further histiographic research.
Where I draw evidence from Richard Carpenter's Website, such documentation is not meant to be the last word on
any topic. It is simply a representation of his words, as they are presented on his website.
Carpenters' research, if only from an histiographic purview, presents a researcher with many instances of conflicting documentation.
Unfortunately, regardless of source--be it print, audio, video, internet--the spectre of Whig-Interpretation abounds when it
comes to the 'History' of Carpenters career.
Thus, I always certainly urge readers to continue research into documentary sources; distinct from reliance on any one interpretation.
 
I think the official A&M site still lists Herb as having sold more albums than the Carpenters. How is this possible?
 
I think the official A&M site still lists Herb as having sold more albums than the Carpenters. How is this possible?

There is no official A&M site anymore. The closest there is is interscope.com . Trust us on that.
 
Hi
Is there any update on these albums status? and do sales from amazon count toward certifications?
 
Only if the record company (in this case Universal) is interested in these type of certifications. They aren't awarded automatically. The reality is that likely no-one at Universal cares about these kind of status awards for older catalog albums like those of Carpenters.

Harry
 
Only if the record company (in this case Universal) is interested in these type of certifications. They aren't awarded automatically. The reality is that likely no-one at Universal cares about these kind of status awards for older catalog albums like those of Carpenters.

Harry
Which explains a lot these days. Nevertheless, regardless of sales figures and their country of origin. Circumstances etc not withstanding. The music of The Carpenters in all their various forms will always be very much with us. And all that is really important IMO Is simply to "ENJOY IT AND SAVOR EVERY SONG TO THE FULLEST"!
After all that is why we buy the music we like to hear.
 
Those three albums haven't been certified gold-and probably never will.All three have been out-of-print in the US for several years.(There's a few import copies of Passage & MIA floating around on Amazon).

Total cumulative sales are : Ticket To Ride- Approximately 400,000
Passage -Approximately 450,000
Made In America- Approximately 500,000
I always thought that 500,000 copied garnered Gold Certification, whereas 1,000,000 copies was Platinum.
So, if MIA has 500,000 copies sold, wouldn't that be a Gold record?
 
Of course, regardless of RIAA Status, the most interesting aspect of those three albums rests upon
circumstances and decisions which---for better or for worse--
gave pause to the indication of sales as a measure (not "the" measure)
of professional and/or commercial accolades.
The $50,000 to complete Offering in 1969, presented a financial loss at that time.
The most expensive to produce, Made In America, may have--at that time--duplicated those 1969 financial circumstances.(?)
And, yet, those two (and, to an extent Passage--the first to 'fail' to go-Gold) are as different as night and day.
1977's Passage (I believe) is not as much of a departure from the first album as it is of the last.
Vocally, the 1977 effort is head and shoulders above the other two.( 1977/8 This was a missed opportunity. Give up the TV time!)
Arrangement-wise, the differences between MIA and Offering are quite evident.(And, too, vocally).
Unless I am mistaken, A&M Records ---in both 1969 and 1981---was floundering. (Then again, the entire industry.)
Passage --so very different from album Hush--should have garnered more notice. I remember those days---no one
in my high school class (except me) cared about Carpenters' music. I wish it had been different.
Still, these three albums are enough for some kind of dissertation, an analysis of Carpenters' career.
 
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