Metallica’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct Leaps Up the Billboard Top 200 Again

Metallica music is the gift that keeps on giving. To its members. In the form of checks.

Having already wondered who the hell just bought The Black Album last week, we are now forced to consider who the hell just bought Hardwired… to Self-Destruct last week. Because apparently, the answer is “A lot of people”: more than sixteen months after its release in November of 2016, the band’s tenth full-length studio album has once again ascended the Billboard 200, landing at the #2 spot, with 65,000 units sold (63,000 of which, it’s worth noting, were traditional album sales).

That’s not a typo: Hardwired was the second-highest selling album in the United States last week. Nor was the ascent gentle: during the sales period just a week prior, the album was at the #42 spot.

So why the 400+% increase all of a sudden? Billboard accredits it to “a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer for the next U.S./Canadian leg of the band’s WorldWired Tour.” Still, that’s a crazy impressive number. To give you some perspective, 65,000 copies is more than the FIRST week sales for Slayer’s Repentless (50,000 copies), Megadeth’s Dystopia (48,000), or Anthrax’s For All Kings (34,000).

In other words, Metallica continue to be the biggest band in metal, and will likely remain the biggest band in metal forever and all time.

Get all of Metallica’s upcoming tour dates here.

[via Metal Insider]