Mastodon can officially say that they have the best-selling album in the country this week, with their awesome new album, Emperor of Sand (read our review here). The band sold 41,000 copies of their new album, their best first week sales to date. However, that only landed them at #7 on the Billboard chart? Why? Streaming!
Drake, who currently holds the top spot with 136,000 equivalent album units – which combines traditional album sales with digital sales and streams. According to Billboard, "10 digital track sales from an album to one equivalent album sale, and 1,500 song streams from an album to one equivalent album sale." So, a lot of people were streaming Drake.
Mastodon actually shifted an additional 2,000 units from streaming and digital sales, bringing their total first week to 43,000, all things considered, it's the band's best first week ever. The closest the band got to that number is 2009's Crack The Skye with 41,000 units sold.
Metal Insider notes that the band did a promotion for their upcoming tour, where any fan who purchased a ticket gets a copy of the album, which counts towards the Billboard charts. Metal Insider speculates these sales were likely counted towards first week sales of the album, although that is not confirmed. It was the same tactic that led to Metallica being on #2 on the charts a few weeks ago.
Amazon currently has a sale on the CD version of the album for $9.99.
A congrats for the band is in order. See them on tour this summer, dates here. Also, check out their excellent performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week.
