Thy Name Is Garth: Only One Country Artist Earned an RIAA-Certified Platinum Album Released in 2016, But Two Others Earned Gold

Recording industry trade organization RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) released its final numbers for 2016, and, as you can imagine, it’s good to be Garth.

The reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year released a nine-album bundle set at Target in November, and each album has been certified platinum by RIAA for 1 million certified units, including Garth’s new studio album, Gunslinger, as well as the eight other albums that were part of the bundle: Cowboys, Midnight Fire, Old School, RPMs, The Covers, The Road, Turn It Up and Anthems.

The RIAA bases its gold (500,000 units) and platinum (1 million units) designations on album sales, song sales, on-demand audio/video song streams, physical album shipments to online and physical retailers and more.

Blake Shelton’s If I’m Honest and Joey + Rory’s Hymns That Are Important to Us are the only two other albums released in 2016 that earned RIAA gold designations for 500,000 units sold.

RIAA Platinum Country Albums of 2016

  • Gunslinger – Garth Brooks
  • Cowboys
  • Midnight Fire
  • Old School
  • RPMs
  • The Covers
  • The Road
  • Turn It Up
  • Anthems

RIAA Gold Country Albums of 2016

  • If I’m Honest – Blake Shelton
  • Hymns That Are Important to Us – Joey + Rory

Blogs

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2025

New in Theaters:  “Jurassic World: Rebirth” Travis Kelce became a whole new level of famous when he started dating Taylor Swift . . . and he wasn’t ready for it.  In a recent podcast interview, he said, quote, “That’s probably the only thing I didn’t really grasp until you’re in it.” It’s gotten so bad,…

TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2025

A list of Fourth of July movies to watch this week:”Jaws”, “Top Gun”, and “Captain America: The First Avenger”.  A list of patriotic songs for your 4th of July playlist:  Whitney Houston’s “Star-Spangled Banner”, “Living in America” by James Brown, and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” by the Beach Boys. Now that country music is “cool” again, and…