Last week was a huge week for heavy metal, topped by the release of Black Sabbath's first new album in 35 years to feature Ozzy, Tony and Geezer. The marketing blitz paid off as Sabbath have the #1 record in the country.
Black Sabbath's 13 sold 154,890 copies of their new album to come in at #1, which is about three times as much as the #2 album in the country, the excellent Daft Punk record, Random Access Memories. That's a huge number, especially in today's marketplace. For comparison's sake, the last Heaven and Hell album, which of course featured Tony and Geezer with Ronnie James Dio sold 30,000 first week to land at #8 on the charts in 2009. Ozzy's last solo album, Scream sold 81,000 in 2010, so they are up across the board.
Elsewhere on the charts, The Black Dahlia Murder came in at their highest charting position, #32 with 13,033 sales of their new album, Everblack which is in line with the sales of their previous release, Ritual in 2011, which sold 12,960 frst week to land at #31. In a declining marketplace, to have matching sales shows there is quite a dedicated Black Dahlia fanbase out there.
The other big release of the week was Children of Bodom's Halo of Blood which sold 8,531 copies first week to come in at 52 on the overall charts, which is down from the 11k they sold first week on their last album, Relentless Reckless Forever, which must be a bummer for the band's label.
