Metallica Debut at No. 1 with The New Album “Hardwired … to Self-Destruct”

Metallica‘s back — and back on top of the charts, too.

Billboard reviews that Metallica’s new Hardwired … to Self-Destruct LP is on songs to sell within the neighborhood of 300,000 units — greater than 280,000 of which look like physical gross sales — which places them on course for a No. 1 debut on subsequent week’s chart.

Hardwired‘s chart-topping act will mark Metallica’s sixth No. 1 album, and though general gross sales have declined within the music industry since the band achieved its mainstream breakthrough within the late ’80s and early ’90s, it’s value noting that their numbers remain respectable when it comes to their very own latest releases — and those of their peers. Billboard points out that Metallica’s final release, 2008’s Death Magnetic, moved practically 490,000 copies in its first week and racked up roughly 1,000,000 in its first month.

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Looking further back, the band have been simply as consistent. Their 2003 album St. Anger sold 418,000 copies over a shortened 1. week of gross sales; 1997’s Re-Load moved 435,000 copies; 1996’s Load debuted at 680,000; and 1991’s Black Album opened with 598,000 in gross sales.

These numbers are not as spectacular as baseline gross sales within the document industry’s heyday, however as compared, AC/DC‘s Rock or Bust moved roughly 172,000 units throughout its first week on the charts in 2014 — a steep tumble from the 784,000 they sold with the debut of Black Ice in 2008. Aerosmith, in the meantime, dropped from 240,000 with 2001’s Simply Push Play to 63,000 with 2012’s Music from One other Dimension!

Lengthy layoffs between records arguably didn’t assist momentum for any of the above music groups, however even releasing albums usually doesn’t all the time add as much as large gross sales. Bon Jovi‘s new This House Is Not for Sale LP, as an example, sold roughly 129,000 copies in its first week — up from the 101,000 they posted with 2013’s What About Now, however down from 2007’s Lost Highway (292,000) and 2009’s The Circle (163,000)
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Nevertheless the numbers ultimately add up, a number one record is a number one record — and if Hardwired has legs as strong as Death Magnetic‘s, it may end up sticking across the top of the charts for weeks to come back. And with frontman James Hetfield occurring record as saying Metallica doesn’t wish to wait one other near-decade to deliver its subsequent LP, their subsequent No. 1 record may arrive even before we expect.