Metallica Beat Out Katy Perry for Best-Selling New Album

They did it! Metal wins!

A few days after projections surfaced that showed Metallica and Katy Perry essentially neck-and-neck for best new album sales in the week beginning August 28, Metallica have pulled out a victory with 56,000 equivalent album sales of S&M2. Perry’s smile shifted 50,000 equivalent album sales.

“Equivalent album sales” tallies include pure sales (both physical and digital) as well as stream equivalents, with 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription audio and video streams counting as one album sale. In the projections issued last week, Metallica had Perry edged on the physical front, with 8,000 additional units shifted.

‘Tallica placed at #4 on the Billboard 200 chart while Perry ranked #5. The top three spots were all occupied by artists whose albums came out back in July — Taylor Swift, Pop Smoke and Juice Wrld — hence Metallica ending up with the top-selling new release.

The print edition of Billboard reported the news today, while this chart is expected to be updated tomorrow, Tuesday, September 8.

[via Loudwire]