People Are Somehow STILL Buying the Black Album Enough to Keep It on Billboard 200
The staying power of Metallica‘s 1991 self-titled album is absolutely fucking insane. Sure, people love “Enter Sandman”, “Sad But True”, and “Nothing Else Matters”, but do they really love it enough to keep it on the Billboard 200 for a total of 750th weeks?! There’s just no way.
Yet here we are — half way through July 2024 and the Black Album has now reached the 750 week milestone on the Billboard 200, landing at number 168 this week. It’s the fourth album to hit the milestone, with just Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon now at 990 weeks, Bob Marley’s Legend at 843 total weeks, and Journey’s Greatest Hits coming in at 813 weeks.
The album hadn’t been in the top 200 for a while, but that all changed back in September 2021 when the band reissued the album with a 30th anniversary set that month. In fact, that reissue caused the album to crack the top 10 for the first time since August 1992.
According to Billboard, albums land on the Billboard 200 based on data compiled by Luminate, which takes album sales numbers and blends them with track equivalent albums and streaming equivalent albums.
Since then, however, fans new and old have been buoying the album for years, bringing it to a 16-times platinum certification. Most of that’s because of the aforementioned singles, but also continuous radio and TV time, along with its constant place at the top of most “greatest albums of all time” lists. To this day, the album is the best selling album in the more than 30 year history of Nielsen SoundScan.
If you want to catch some of these Black Album tunes live, you can do so at any of the remaining M72 world tour dates below.
Metallica M72 Tour
AUG 2 & 4, 2024 – FOXBOROUGH, MA – GILLETTE STADIUM
AUG 9 & 11, 2024 – CHICAGO, IL – SOLDIER FIELD
AUG 16 & 18, 2024 – MINNEAPOLIS, MN – U.S. BANK STADIUM
AUG 23 & 25, 2024 – EDMONTON, CANADA – COMMONWEALTH STADIUM
AUG 30 & SEP 1, 2024 – SEATTLE, WA – LUMEN FIELD
SEP 20 & 22, 2024 – MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – FORO SOL*
SEP 27 & 29, 2024 – MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – FORO SOL*
