Avenged Sevenfold's 2013 single "Hail To The King" just got certified as 3x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA), and nobody should be surprised. Or in other words, the single has now sold in excess of 3 million copies.
Despite the song being way more straightforward and rock-influenced than anything else Avenged Sevenfold has ever done, it's still their No. 1 song on Spotify with over 489 million streams. For reference, the next two most popular are "Nightmare" with 305 million and "Afterlife" with 206 million.
Avenged Sevenfold vocalist M. Shadows defended the single in 2022 after one fan posted a "hot take" that the song is actually good. "'Hail to the King' (the song) streams more than double any other tracks we have weekly. The album is on track to out-sell all the others… yet a portion of the fan base acts like it was a failure by all accounts," said Shadows.
He later added: "I see new people get into the band and ask for recommendations… the answer is usually 'anything but HTTK.' I think thats funny because the metrics clearly say otherwise… regardless of your opinion."
