SAN FRANCISCO, CA – AUGUST 12: (L-R) Robert Trujillo, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and James Hetfield … [+]
Metallica has made a powerful return to the music scene with their latest album, 72 Seasons…though not quite powerful enough to continue one of the longest runs in Billboard history.
The hard rock legends managed to secure the No. 2 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, coming in just behind country musician Morgan Wallen, whose latest set One Thing at a Time has proved to be unstoppable.
72 Seasons arrives with 146,000 equivalent units, with pure album sales making up the majority of the units earned. The album sold 134,000 copies, according to data provided by Luminate. That’s enough to make 72 Seasons the top-selling album of the week, according to Billboard.
In addition to their album sales, 72 Seasons also managed to rack up 11,500 streaming equivalent units, which came from nearly 16 million streams of the tunes on the new set.
72 Seasons is the band’s twelfth title to break into the top 10 on the Billboard 200, with the hard rock favorites having topped the tally with half of those efforts. Sadly, this latest traditional album is their first not to make it to No. 1 on the most important ranking of albums and EPs in the U.S. since their 1988 project, …And Justice for All, thus ending an impressive winning streak.
According to Billboard, the success of 72 Seasons marks the largest week by total equivalent units for any rock or hard rock album in three and a half years. 72 Seasons is Metallica’s first album of entirely original material in seven years, although they haven’t been silent. During that period, the group has been busy doling out other types of offerings for their fans.
Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time has already spent a total of seven consecutive weeks at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and it is likely headed for an eighth very soon. This time around, the country CD moved another 166,000 equivalent album units, with streaming playing a very role in that success.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/04/24/metallica-ends-its-decades-long-winning-streak-on-the-billboard-charts-as-their-new-album-starts-at-no-2/