THIS WEEK IN SOUNDSCAN: BIG MASTODON DEBUT! EPIC CHRIS CORNELL FAIL!
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 12:09pm by Vince NeilsteinThe infamous Now That’s What They Call Music comp, now it’s thirtieth iteration (!), will never stop selling. Nor will Hannah Montana. Given, it’s tough for any true metal band to crack the Billboard 200, but Mastodon did just once again that by notching a #11 debut with Crack the Skye, beat out metal-wise only by Papa Roach (ugh). Elsewhere, we got some surprises from Chris Cornell, Twiztid (!?) and others. Sales figures for those and other notable hard rock and metal releases after the jump.
8 PAPA ROACH – METAMORPHOSIS
This week: 44,449 (debut)
Red state rock still sells.
11 MASTODON – CRACK THE SKYE
This week: 41,395 (debut)
Best debut of their career; Blood Mountain debuted with 24,000 units sold. Congrats! Yes, the official MS review is coming soon, so stop pestering.
18 NICKELBACK – DARK HORSE
This week: 30,156
Cume: 1,740,993
See Papa Roach, above.
42 THEORY OF A DEADMAN – SCARS & SOUVENIRS
This week: 11,857
Cume: 410,675
See Papa Roach and Nickelback, above. But bless this band for continuing the help line Roadrunner’s coffers for other, better bands.
54 HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD – SWAN SONGS
This week: 10,339
Cume: 305,169
Sigh.
60 SHINEDOWN – SOUND OF MADNESS
This week: 9,214
Cume: 380,194
Yay!
77 METALLICA – DEATH MAGNETIC
This week: 7,324
Cume: 1,710,121
Gonna hit double platinum pretty soon.
81 LAMB OF GOD – WRATH
This week: 7,165
Cume: 119,967
Seems to be sinking pretty fast. Still, a great number for music this heavy. I wonder how these numbers stack up against those of Sacrament five weeks after release?
102 CORNELL*CHRIS – SCREAM
This week: 5,391
Cume: 38,411
Those numbers include the $2.99 giveaway on Amazon. Let me spell that out more clearly: They practically gave this album away on Amazon for $3 and people still don’t want to buy it. Epic fail of monolithic proportions.
109 TWIZTID – W.I.C.K.E.D.
This week: 5,220
Cume: 28,172
This is shocking to me. I didn’t even know this band was still around. Juggalos, rejoice.
115 AC/DC – BLACK ICE
This week: 4,736
Cume: 2,046,965
Walmart sells records! For most acts this old a record is just an excuse for a tour, but clearly people still want new AC/DC music.
154 AVENGED SEVENFOLD – AVENGED SEVENFOLD
This week: 3,660
Cume: 559,157
A slow and steady burner since its release well over a year ago. Got off to a slower-than-expected start, but I can’t see how the label wouldn’t be happy with these numbers.
-VN
Who the fuck are twiztid?
I wonder if the free digital copies of ‘Scream’ bundled with the tickets for his upcoming tour have anything to do with the particular low sales overall. Then again, it could just be the music…
I think the AC/DC numbers are so high because Walmart committed to buying them all up front, thereby guaranteeing the double/triple/quadruple platinum numbers. However, that’s still an impressive business deal for the band. Brilliant, in fact. I’m not a huge fan of LOG, but it’s good to see them pushing that many albums so quickly. It’s good for metal in general.
Cornell’s new target market probably doesn’t know who he is, and his former target market(s) wouldn’t touch it with *your* money. But it’s easy to gamble when you’re already loaded.
I’m not a fan of Theory of a NickelRoach, but at least it’s categorized as “rock” music.
Mastodon deserved this more than anything. hard working band with a new top notch album and i cant wait to see them live
The new Mastodon record is fucking unbelievable and I hope they sell a shitload of copies. Easily the best record I have heard in years.
No updates on Slipknot or, your favourite band, Disturbed?
The new MASTODON album is GREAT!!!
I hope it climbs up in sales!!
The Laaaaaast Baarooon !!!!!
New LoG is a very good release, too
Hopefully Cornell’s midlife crisis can stop now – it’s costing too much money and fans.
Great result for Mastodon. Would have been nice if it made the Top 10 though. The No.10 album also 41,000 copies so it’d be interesting to know how narrow the gap was between the two.
Vince, Sacrament was at No.112 in its 5th week with 8,493 copies sold and had sold a total of 117,484 copies. So Wrath is still ahead by 2,500 copies but the margin between the two is getting narrower. It should end up selling at least as much as that album did. Their NA tour starts tomorrow so that should keep sales at a steady pace for the next few weeks.
I wouldn’t say A7X had a slow start with the debut of their latest album. It did debut at No.4 and sold 94,000 in its first week. It has held up very well though. Could go Platinum in a few years. City Of Evil has nearly sold a million after almost 4 years so I can definitely see this album managing it too.
Damn. 41,395 copies in the first week?!? Amazing. And deserved. Great album from a great band.
New Mastodon kicks balls
Just seen sales of the No.10 album, which was Martina McBride’s new one. She outsold Mastodon by a mere 62 copies! They were so close. If the vinyl version of the album had come out the same week as the CD and digital releases, they would have definitely made the Top 10!
Wow only 62 away from a Top Ten record.Either way, these dudes said in Revolver a few years back that it’s hard being in a metal band and “making it” was rare. They went so far as to say that they probably wouldn’t be around that long. That was just before they got signed, and now they have released a record that is one of the best released in this decade, not just 2009. Kudos to Mastodon – they aren’t hype and they deserve this.
i actually paid money for crack the skye…dont think ive done that since 10000 days. so i did my part. too bad the gig is sold out.
good for mastodon this album fucking rules!!!
Now That’s What I Call Music is only in its thirtieth iteration stateside? Ha. Across the pond we’ve got over seventy of the bastards.
I thought there were at least 50 of them in America…there’s no way there are only 13.I remember Now That’s What I Call Music 13 coming out in around 2001.