Mastodon Had Their Best First-Week Sales Numbers of their Career with Emperor of Sand

Emperor of Sand sold 43,000 units in its first week of release, according to Billboard [via Metal Insider], good enough for the band’s top debut total ever. Their seventh studio album bested their previous record-holder, Crack the Skye, which sold 41,000 units first week in 2009.

What’s even more impressive is that Mastodon fans — or maybe just metal fans in general — continue to be invested in full albums. 41,000 of those 43,000 copies were either physical units or full album downloads, with the remaining 2,000 coming from streaming and track-equivalent downloads, meaning Emperor of Sand was the top-selling album of the week in traditional album sales. That beat out Drake’s new album More Life which, despite garnering 136,000 in total equivalent units sold, had a lower pure sales number (Drake fans went heavy on the streaming). The inclusion of streaming numbers this time also means Mastodon ranked lower on the charts this time (#7 vs. the #6 that Once More ‘Round the Sun landed three years ago) despite the larger sales volume.

One possible asterisk: as a promotion for Mastodon’s upcoming tour with Eagles of Death Metal and Russian Circles, anyone that purchased a pair of tickets received a physical copy or download of the album. It’s not clear whether those numbers were factored into the first week, but it seems likely given that the tour was announced back in January.

Even so, this is a big day for Mastodon. Congrats, guys!