Metallica’s Hardwired Not So Fucked After All, Debuts at #1

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Metallica’s new album, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct has debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart in its debut week of release. This may have had something to do with Metallica being insanely popular, but we feel confident saying it was the MetallicaSucks promotion we did on the day of the record’s release that really cinched it for ’em. You’re so welcome, fellas!

According to Lambgoat, Hardwired sold approximately 290,000 copies in its first week of release, making it the band’s sixth straight number one debut in a row (in other words, every album they’ve released since 1991’s Black Album).

Even though it was recently established that math is not allowed in metal, for the sake of discussion, it seems worth pointing out that Metallica’s last album, Death Magnetic, sold 490,000 copies in its first three days of release (it was released on a Friday, which was unusual in 2008, when albums still came out on Tuesdays), and St. Anger sold 420,000 copies in its first week of release. In other words, Hardwired‘s first week sales represent a roughly 40% drop from the first week sales of Death Magnetic, which is still a smaller drop than the one suffered by Avenged Sevenfold’s new album, The Stage.

Although there are probably multiple factors to explain Metallica’s sales dip, I think we all know it would have sold better if it had featured “Unforgiven IV.” Oh well.

[via Lambgoat]