Bullet for My Valentine’s New Album: First-Week Sales Revealed
Bullet for My Valentine’s new, self-titled album has debuted with No. 153 on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release, racking up 7,700 album equivalent units (6,000 of which were pure album sales).
Lambgoat notes that this number, though impressive by many (if not most) metal standards, marks a major fall-off for Bullet for My Valentine: it’s their first album since their 2003 debut, The Poison, not to sell at least 20,000 copies right out of the gate and crack the Top 20 of the aforementioned Billboard 200.
By way of comparison, here are the first week figures for BFMV’s albums released in-between The Poison and their eponymous offering:
- Scream Aim Fire (2005) — 53,000 copies – No. 4 on the Billboard 200
- Fever (2010) — 71,000 — No. 3
- Temper Temper (2013) — 41,000 — No. 13
- Venom (2015) — 21,000 — No. 8
- Gravity (2018) — 26,000 — No. 17
So, yeah, this new album is a precipitous drop.
I could not for the life of me tell you what happened here. I don’t like Bullet for My Valentine and I don’t know what makes any of their albums better or worse than any of their other albums. I don’t think the pandemic or even just general modern day industry B.S. (e.g., illegal downloading) explains a 71% sales drop from just four years ago. And it’s not like the band didn’t promote the record.
I’d like to think this is because all of Bullet for My Valentine’s audience collectively heard Rust in Peace for the first time and realized this band sucks. That’s probably not what really happened, either, though.
Speculate recklessly in the comments section.
