Avenged Sevenfold Are Selling a Crap Load of Units

Avenged Sevenfold shocked the metal yesterday when they released their new album, The Stage, at midnight together with a live, web-broadcast performance, after previously having announced the album would be coming in December.

The album’s titular first single has been out for two weeks now, and boy is it performing well. According to Billboard, in the single’s first week of release (ending October 20th) it received 1.9 million streams and sold 15,000 downloads in the U.S. alone. Think streaming revenue doesn’t add up? Think again. We’re sure those numbers have grown tremendously in the week since, and will continue to do so now that album is out.

What about physical album sales? Well, we’ll see, the jury is out. But unlike Beyonce, Frank Ocean or many of the other artists who staged “surprise” album releases, The Stage is available in physical formats the day it’s being released instead of just digitally or locked behind an exclusive paywall (i.e. Tidal). Will the surprise element work to their advantage, or will the lack of run-up and marketing hype albums usually get leading into their release detract from sales?

Stream the album below: