Drake’s “God’s Plan” was the Top Song and Cardi B, Post Malone and Migos had the Top Albums in the RIAA’s Top-Certified Gold & Platinum list of 2018.
“God’s Plan” was certified eight-times platinum.
Cardi B’s “Invasion of Privacy,” Post Malone’s “Beerbongs & Bentleys” and Migos’ “Culture II” were all certified double platinum, while Camila Cabello’s “Camila,,” J. Cole’s “KOD,” Drake’s “Scorpion,” XXXTentacion’s “?,” Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” soundtrack and the Kendrick Lamar-helmed “Black Panther” soundtrack were all certified platinum.
J Balvin’s “Vibras” was the Top Awarded Latin Album, with an eight-times platino certification, and Daddy Yankee’s “Dura” was the Top Awarded Latin Song, certified 21-times platino; the RIAA’s Latin gold & platinum program has lower thresholds than the main categories.
According to the announcement, 33 albums and 151 songs released this year achieved RIAA certification in 2018. According to the RIAA rules, Gold status is more than 500,000 units while Platinum is more than 1 million; in the streaming age, each permanent digital album or physical album sale count as 1 unit for certification purposes, 10 permanent track downloads from the album count as 1 unit for certification purposes, and 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video streams from the album count as 1 unit. For songs, 150 on-demand audio and/or video streams count as 1 unit for certification purposes. The full criteria can be found here.