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The Explicast, Episode Four: How Do You Sell A Million Records?

It might seem like a throwaway pop culture note at the end of a busy week, but it’s actually not insignificant that Taylor Swift has already sold around 1.3 million copies of her album, “1989,” after just one week on the market. She’s not just the first artist of 2014 to sell a million copies in a week - she’s the first artist to sell a million albums, period, this year.

It’s not a feat that’s easily duplicated, in this age of music streaming and rampant piracy. So there’s a kind of promotional genius to what Swift has managed to pull off.

How do you go platinum in 2014? What’s the secret? That’s something we wondered about here this week at The Explicast, a new spinoff project from WBUR and On Point Radio with Tom Ashbrook, exploring the questions behind the week’s headlines.

This week’s query? How do you sell a million records?

Our source? Keith Caulfield, associate director of charts for Billboard Magazine.

Is Spotify Fair to Musicians? (On Point Radio, July 17, 2013)

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