In 2014, Metallica surpassed a huge milestone with over 16 million copies sold of their seminal self-titled 1991 release, affectionately known as the Black album. It is the highest selling album of the last 25 years. At the time, the band were selling a little over 2,000 copies a week leading us to ask who the hell still hasn't bought the album?
I took a look at some recent numbers and their sales have nearly tripled! This week alone, the 26 year old album has outsold the latest releases from Five Finger Death Punch, Ghost, Slipknot, and Iron Maiden. Take a look at some recent numbers:
This week: 5,700
Last week: 5,400
Two weeks ago: 5,000
Three weeks ago: 4,900
Sales have been going up, week after week. What could be the culprit? Well, for one, they got a lot of publicity for their performance the night before the Super Bowl, but another reason is because of streaming and digital downloads.
In December of 2014, Billboard changed the methodology of counting how many units are sold to not only include full album sales, but also streams and individual song downloads. Ten track sales or 1,500 song streams are the equivalent of one album sold. So, if a ton of people are streaming the Black Album on Spotify, that counts as some sales for the band.
So basically, with the band owning their own masters and an album they wrote 25 years ago still selling like hot cakes, it's safe to say Jason Newsted never has to work again.
[h/t Ryan Downey]
