Top 10 Highest Selling Hard Rock + Metal Albums of 2016 Include Five Different Metallica Releases
Damn! Metallica had an even better 2016 than we thought! Out of the 10 highest-selling hard rock and metal albums of 2016, five of them belong to Metallica.
There will simply never be another band like Metallica and the album sales back up that fact. In an era where new albums from rock and metal’s biggest bands rarely eclipse 100,000 copies sold, a total of six Metallica albums sold over 100,000 copies in 2016.
Metallica’s newest full-length, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, came out Nov. 18 of last year, but it’s already gone gold in the U.S., selling 516,000 copies in 2016. The closest album to touch Hardwired in album sales last year is Disturbed’s 2015 effort, Immortalized, which sold 298,000 copies in 2016.
What’s the third-highest selling metal album of the year? The freaking Black Album! Twenty-five years after the 1991 release, Metallica’s iconic self-titled record sold nearly twice as many copies (267,500 copies) as Megadeth’s 2016 album, Dystopia, which moved 148,000 units in the U.S.
In 2016, Metallica’s Master of Puppets sold 163,000 copies, …And Justice For All moved 155,000 copies, Ride the Lightning was rung up 153,000 times, while Kill ‘em All sold 104,000 copies! How insane is that?!
Check out the highest-selling hard rock and metal albums of 2016 in the list below, courtesy of Metal Insider.
1. Metallica, Hardwired… To Self Destruct (516,000 sold)
2. Disturbed, Immortalized (298,000 sold)
3. Metallica, Metallica (aka "The Black Album") (267,500 sold)
4. Bon Jovi, The House is Not For Sale (174,000 sold)
5. Journey, Greatest Hits (169,000 sold)
6. Metallica, Master of Puppets (163,000 sold)
7. Metallica, …And Justice For All (155,000 sold)
8. Metallica, Ride the Lightning (153,000 sold)
9. Megadeth, Dystopia (
148,000 sold)
10. Five Finger Death Punch, Got Your Six (146,500 sold)
11. Avenged Sevenfold, The Stage (144,000 sold)
12. Guns N’ Roses, Greatest Hits (138,000 sold)
13. Deftones, Gore (
133,000 sold)
14. Skillet, Unleashed (123,500 sold)
15. Volbeat, Seal the Deal & Lets Boogie (123,000 sold)
16. AC/DC, Back in Black (117,000 sold)
17. Guns N’ Roses, Appetite For Destruction (
115,000 sold)
18. Nirvana, Nevermind (
114,000 sold)
19. Trans-Siberian Orchestra, The Ghosts of Christmas Eve (
113,000 sold)
20. Shinedown, Threat to Survival (110,000 sold)
21. Pierce the Veil, Misadventures (105,000 sold)
22. Metallica, Kill ’em All (
104,000 sold)
23. A Day to Remember, Bad Vibrations (
102,000 sold)
24. Korn, The Serenity of Suffering (
100,000 sold)
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