Asking Alexandria’s New Album is Their First Not to Debut on Billboard 200

See What’s on the Inside, the new Asking Alexandria album, failed to debut on the Billboard 200 chart in its first week of release, Lambgoat reports. It is the first of the band’s seven albums to bear this distinction.

Inside ended up selling approximately 2,400 copies, not including ‘album equivalent units’ (i.e., streams). That’s a huge dip — about 66% — from last year’s Like a House on Fire, which sold roughly 7,000 copies in its first week of release, garnering the #80 spot on the Billboard 200.

Inside‘s first-week numbers also continues Asking Alexandria’s downward trend in sales over their past few albums:

• Asking Alexandria (2017) — 22,000 copies in its first week of release, #27 on the Billboard 200 chart.
• The Black (2016) — 28,000 copies in its first week of release, #9 on the Billboard 200 chart.
• From Death to Destiny (2013) — 41,000 copies in its first week of release, #5 on the Billboard 200 chart.
• Reckless & Relenteless (2011) — 31,000 copies in its first week of release, #9 on the Billboard 200 chart.

I can’t seem to find first-week sales figures for the group’s 2009 debut, Stand Up and Scream, but it debuted at #170 on the Billboard 200 chart.

As a caveat, we should note that, generally speaking, all metal artists across the board are seeing album sales decline from album to album; that is simply the way things go in the modern era.

Still, selling about a tenth of the number of albums you sold just four years ago has to be alarming.

I can’t tell the difference between one Asking Alexandria album and another, so I can’t speculate as to why this is happening… other than to note that, a) Inside is the band’s first album on Better Noise Music after many years with Sumerian, and (more importantly, I’d argue), b) they’ve been around for twelve years now and their fanbase is getting older. A 15-year-old who thought Danny Worsnop was cool in 2009 is now 27 and presumably has other stuff on their mind. Asking Alexandria’s fanbase may have simply outgrown them.