Whether you love or hate Metallica‘s Black Album, its legacy is undeniable. Nearly 29 years after its release, the album has re-entered the Billboard 200 and pushed over 6,000 units in the last week — roughly a third of which were actual album sales.
Ryan J. Downey’s Stream N’ Destroy newsletter reports that Metallica pushed 6,409 total units in the last week, which combines streaming and album sales — 2,235 of those units were pure album sales. That’s laughably more than… never mind, let’s stay on track here.
The last few weeks have been full of Metallica news. There’ve been confirmed reports that they are working on a new album, the announcement of the upcoming S&M2 live album, James Hetfield‘s birthday, a clip of all four members rehearsing “Creeping Death” together for the first time since the pandemic started and a live show announcement. To top it all off, tomorrow (Aug. 12) is the 29th anniversary of the iconic Metallica.
Perhaps all of the aforementioned bits contributed to the spike in the Black Album’s popularity once again, but it’s certainly no stranger to the Billboard 200. In December of 2019, it became the fourth album in American history to have spent over 550 weeks on the chart. That’s over 10 years.
Metallica currently clocks in at No. 200 on the chart — but this is now its 580th week, which is over 11 years.
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