Breaking news: Metallica's new album, Hardwired… To Self-Destruct sold a lot of albums in the United States. The album sold sold 291,000 album-equivalent units, and according to Billboard, 282,000 of them where traditional album sales. Which is huge!
The remaining 9,000 units come from streams and single purchases, according to Billboard 10 tracks sold equal one album sale and 1,500 streams is equivalent to one album sale. It's the third largest first-week of the year, only behind Drake and Beyonce. It's the best first week a rock album has had in two and a half years, since Coldplay released Ghost Stories in June, 2014. Coldplay is rock?
Metallica now have a six-album streak of debuting atop the Billboard charts, starting with their monster hit, The Black Album. Sales were down 40% from the release of Death Magnetic in 2008, which sold 490,000 copies in its first week. It's also worth noting, Death Magnetic had an abbreviated first week as the album was released on a Friday, back when albums were typically released on Tuesdays. St. Anger, which also had an abbreviated first week sold 418,000 copies. Going back to the 90s, Re-Load came in at 435,000 copies first week, 1996's Load did 680,000 first week and 1991's Black Album topped the charts with 598,000 first week.
Overall, Metallica should be proud of that incredibly strong number, especially considering this is their first major release on their new self-financed label, Blackened Recordings. Their previous albums all had monster pushes from major labels. The band also announced the album was crazy successful overseas as well – coming in at number 1 in 57 countries, and being in the Top 3 in 75 countires and Top 5 in 105 countries.
If you still haven't got your copy, Amazon is selling Hardwired… To Self-Destruct in CD version for $13.49.
