Adele, Taylor Swift and More Top RIAA's 2012 Tallies

Continuing their successful trend, many of music's most popular artists earned Platinum album awards for their 2012 releases: Jason Aldean's "Night Train" (Broken Bow, his fifth Platinum album), Justin Bieber's "Believe" (Island, his fifth), Nicki Minaj's "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded" (Universal Republic, her second), Mumford & Sons' "Babel" (Glassnote Records, their second), One Direction's "Up All Night" (Syco Music/Columbia Records, their second), P!nk's "Truth About Love" (RCA Records, her seventh), Lionel Richie's "Tuskegee" (Mercury, his sixth), Rod Stewart's "Merry Christmas, Baby" (Verve, his 19^th), and Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" (19 Recordings Limited/Arista Nashville, her fourth).

Five golden musicians had huge 2012 debuts as their first albums each sold more than 500,000 copies to certify RIAA Gold: Georgia rapper 2 Chainz' "Based on a T.R.U. Story" (Def Jam), NYC pop band Fun.'s "Some Nights" (Fueled By Ramen), Icelandic folk band Of Monsters and Men's "My Head Is An Animal" (Republic Records), folk-rick trio The Lumineers' "The Lumineers" (Dualtone Music Group, Inc.), and rapper Abel Tesfaye's, a.k.a.The Weeknd's, "Trilogy" (Republic Records).

RIAA awarded three breakout stars first time double-Platinum song awards in 2012: American Idol season eleven winner Phillip Phillips for "Home" (Interscope/Geffen/A&M), South Korean YouTube sensation PSY for "Gangnam Style" (Universal Republic), and Cali rapper Tyga for "Rack City" (Universal Republic).

Eight spectacular musical acts earned their very first Gold AND Platinum digital song awards for selling more than one million downloads of their respective 2012 songs: country music duo Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise" (Republic Nashville), Las Vegas alt-rockers Imagine Dragon's "It's Time" (Kidinakorner/Interscope), Pop pair Karmin's "Brokenhearted" (Epic), English singer-rapper Cher Lloyd's "Want U Back" (Epic), five-person ensemble Of Monsters And Men's "Little Talks" (Universal Republic), and Denver rockers The Lumineers' "Ho Hey" (Dualtone Music Group, Inc.).