Album sales as a whole were never for albums sold, but albums "shipped". . You'd get a platinum or gold plaque if your label shipped 500k or 1 million units initially. The albums would sometimes not "sell" 500k, but the remaining copies would have to be put on discount or in the dollar bin so the store could move them. But artists would still get a plaque for it. It would take months for an artist to see a check after sales of an album. Everyone gets paid first, including producers and after everything is recouped, at a bullshyt very high rate, then the artist could see a check. Back then, show money is how artists made money because there were not 360 deals taking a piece of that from them. So there can be an example of an artist selling millions records and singles, but never seeing a check from the label. See (De la soul). Artists find ways to rob artists with hidden costs like studio time(even though they rent studios for block perids, but charge artists a higher rate), promotion costs, half of video costs, and a lot of shyt they can squeeze out of them. You've really got to be on top of your business.
and for the record, I’m not specifically saying you
