"Sail" By AWOLNATION Is Officially The 57th Diamond Track In United States HISTORY
(SOURCE)
AWOLNATION's massive track 'Sail' has hit an incredible milestone. According to RIAA, the track is now certified Diamond, which is the same as 10x Platinum.
That's 10 million sales. Phew.
Band founder Aaron Bruno had this to say about the achievement:
“I wrote this song with the intention of showing a few friends and my family. It’s a very raw and honest song, so I was kinda nervous to share. I continue to be shocked and humbled that this many millions of people have related. Never in my wildest dreams, would I have even imagined this gift"
Released a decade ago, it currently has been streamed over 607 million times on Spotify.
This came across my desk yesterday afternoon and I thought, "huh, that's pretty cool". That was until I scrolled through the list of tracks that have gone Diamond and they include tracks by artists such as Elton John... Justin Bieber... Lady Gaga... Prince... Eminem... Bruno Mars.... and Queen. That's a list of flat out megastars from the 80s through now. Doesn't matter if you like or dislike any of the bands or artists I just named, they are at the very pinnacle of pumping out insanely popular songs.
"But WSD what does it mean to go Diamond you fat midget?!?"
Great question. Frankly, I wasn't even too sure. I knew all about gold records and platinum records. But Diamond records? Never really heard of them. I knew of their existence, but that was about it. It wasn't until I looked up how rare of a feat it is to go Diamond that I realized how much of an honor it is. It breaks down like this:
500K units for Gold
1MM units for Platinum
2MM units for multi-platinum
10MM units for Diamond
And in steps AWOLNATION's "Sail". Everyone and their mother remembers this song:
Back in 2010-11, it was present in every house party, club, HS football pump up playlist, played NON-STOP on the radio, and it more than anything, transcended musical taste. One could be a country music fan; they still liked Sail. Another could be a reggae fan; all good, Sail fucks. Me? I'm more classic rock or southern rock, and Sail made me wanna run through a brick wall. Girls, guys, you name it, they loved it.
I bring all of this up because of how absurd it is to go Diamond. Again, Sail is the 57th song EVER to go Diamond in the US, and it just so happens that I cohost a music podcast with one of the OG's in AWOLNATION and writers on the track, Kenny Carkeet. Now I've never met Kenny in person. How we're cohosting a podcast together with frontman Colin Budny of Foxtrot and the Get Down out of Philly, is a long story. It doesn't matter though - it's all come full circle. We dropped an episode this morning, about 24 hours after Kenny and AWOLNATION were officially Diamond so we got deep into what it meant to Kenny and how much he LOVES telling the haters to suck his dick while shoving the diamond plaque in their faces. The story of how Sail to be is actually pretty hilarious too:
Oh, and we also had Andy Frasco of Andy Frasco and the UN and Eric Rachmanny of Rebelution on the show to talk shop on tours being announced, new album drops, and how much cocaine is an appropriate amount of cocaine before taking the stage in front of 25,000 people. Excuse my pun, but this episode (and this podcast) ROCK. Rebelution is also dropping a new album on FRIDAY that I got an early listen on. It fucks.
Take a listen for yourself!!!