Hello, I Love You: Amazing Collection Of The Doors Artist-Presented RIAA Awards Up For Sale The iconic status of The Doors is punctuated by the fact that they were the first group to see their first eight consecutive albums be certified Gold by the RIAA. Their star burned brightly, both live and in the studio, until the group disbanded after singer/poet Jim Morrison's untimely death at the age of 27 in 1971. RIAA record awards for the group have always been highly desired by collectors, especially when those awards are highly coveted "white matte" awards from the 60s and...

RIP Charlie Watts, Stones Founding Drummer Sad news today as Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones, died on August 24 at age 80. Earlier this month the Stones had announced that Watts would not perform on the band's upcoming North American No Filter tour dates due to unannounced medical reasons. Watts joined the group in 1962 with a line up that included singer Mick Jagger, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, guitarist Keith Richards, bassist Bill Wyman. Born in London, Watts' first love was jazz. His parents bought hi...

The Best-Selling Albums From 1957-2020 Here is a fascinating video depiction of the best-selling albums from 1957 through 2020. Note the start with what became the first RIAA Gold Album ever awarded (for Oklahoma!), the dominance of Elvis through the late 60s, and then the Beatles rise. You'll also note the fairly constant presence in the 70s of classics such as the various Beatles albums (especially Sgt. Pepper), Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, various Zeppelin albums, Eagles Greatest Hits, Michael Jackson's Thril...

Record Awards As Art: From Mild To Wild Record awards in their earliest days were pretty plain, starting with simple dark-stained wood framed affairs with white matte boards in the 60s and early 70s. The period of 1975 thru the mid-80s brought silver and gold painted frames and charcoal-colored mattes. This was followed by a graduation to some pretty pedestrian black plastic-covered frame/black matte awards from the mid-80s through late 90s. Just before the millennium, however, the RIAA loosened up its' previously strict design...

Concert Tickets and Passes: Small Pieces Of Music History Concert tickets and backstage passes have become excellent collectibles. Most are not overly expensive and they make a great scrap book project or, even better, make for a great art piece when designed into a collage to enjoy on a wall. Like most music collectibles, the artist matters (although also always a matter of personal taste), but older dated shows from an artist's early career or particularly famous shows can be the most highly sought after. Like with most collectibles, condition...

Latest RIAA Top 10 Sales All-Time: AC/DC Rising Since announcing in the past year that the the Beatles infamous White Album had been certified 24x Multi-Platinum -- moving it into fourth spot on its all-time sales list past Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume I -- Aussie hard rock veterans AC/DC have now taken spot #4 from the Fab Four with their 1980 release Back In Black. Clocking in at 25 million copies, the hard-hitting rock masterpiece just keeps on selling no doubt in part fueled by nostalgia after the tragic early...

This Week In Music History Feb 28 - Mar 13 The week in music history brought to you by MusicGoldmine.com. Just a couple of highlights from this week in music history! MAR 1: Happy 94th birthday to Harry Belafonte, born today in 1927! The singer, songwriter, actor, and activist had the first million selling LP by a single artist with his 1956 album Calypso. MAR 5: Today in 1963, Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw Hawkins were killed in a plane crash. Cline was one of the first country artist to successfully crossover into the po...

History of The Beatles Book: Fab 4 Time Capsules From 1963 On The Beatles Book was a series of magazines about the Beatles that was published from 1963 through 2003, which some interruptions along the way. The magazines contained photos and stories of the group from its earliest days and helped drive the mania that surrounded the Beatles as their popularity grew. The publication was founded in 1963 by Sean O'Mahony (1932-2020), who had worked in the music business since the 1950s after first running a coffee bar. By the early 1960s he had become the...

This Week In Music History Jan 17-30 The week in music history brought to you by MusicGoldmine.com. Just a couple of highlights from this week in music history! JAN 19: Happy 75th birthday to Dolly Parton, born today in 1946! Her debut album was released in 1967 and she never looked back. Not only is Parton known for her music, but also her philanthropy. She has sold over 100 million records worldwide! JAN 25: Today in 1961, the all-girl group The Shirelles were at #1 with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”. The Carole King and Gerry...

Exploring International Record Awards: BPI, CRIA, ARIA and More While RIAA awards (those made by the official U.S. record industry trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America) are arguably the best-selling record awards among collectors, there are other choices in the marketplace which can bring similar joy, memories and value to one's collection. These awards are produced under the authorization of similar recording industry trade organizations in various other countries whose industries have created such an organization and who ...

5 Tips To Spot Fake RIAA Awards One of the tricky parts of collecting RIAA record awards is avoiding the fakes that do occasionally exist in the marketplace. Here are five tips that can help you avoid buying a fake RIAA award: 1. Certification: Does the certification date versus the award type make sense? This can be a very tricky area because a recording is not certified officially by the RIAA until the record label submits the paperwork. In some cases, there can be years-long gaps before Platinum was issued on recordings ...

Remembering Eddie Van Halen Through Isolated Tracks Eddie Van Halen (1955-2020). Every rock guitarist alive in the 80s regarded Eddie Van Halen as a god. It's the truth. While Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and others were influences that Eddie would often acknowledge, he took the art of rock guitar to another level, literally inventing techniques that would influence countless other guitarists to follow. His melodic chops were honed by an intense admiration for Clapton. It was an admiration so great that he said he learned all of Clapton's...