On September 4, we reported that Tool's first new album in 13 years Fear Inoculum was on track to beat Taylor Swift's new album Lover for the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart. Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan shared a meme about the feat yesterday, lending credence to the possibility that it might actually happen. Now, probably unsurprisingly, it has happened.
According to Billboard, Fear Inoculum has debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the biggest rock album in over one year. (The last "rock" album to sell this much would be, uhh, Dave Matthews Band in June, 2018.) Fear Inoculum hits #1 with 270,000 equivalent album units, of which 248,000 were in album sales. Which is insane considering the record has only been available for digital download and the $45 deluxe edition CD that has sold out twice now (which is going for prices nobody should pay online from resellers).
So, Fear Inoculum is a pretty big deal if you haven't figured that out yet. Just to look at the other records Tool has been breaking lately with this album's album cycle, look no further than the day Tool released their entire back catalog digitally. That day, all five of their releases immediately shot to the top of the Top 10 Albums sales chart in iTunes. Shortly after, Tool's 1996 album Ænima hit the Billboard Top 10 with 33,000 equivalent album units thanks to streaming, and the debut single "Fear Inoculum" became the longest song in history to enter the Hot 100. Tool is also the first band ever to occupy all 10 of the Top 10 spots of Billboard’s Rock Digital Song Sales chart.
Tool will soon tour with Killing Joke, and you can get those dates here. If you somehow haven't done so yet, you can stream Fear Inoculum here and check out the band's entire back catalog of music videos recently published on YouTube here. Also, probably keep an eye out for new music videos soon.
