For a band that consistently sells over two thousand copies of an album that's over 20 years old, this has to be seen as disappointing.
Metallica and Lou Reed released Lulu three years ago, on November 1, 2011 and in it's first week, it sold 13,000 units. In the three years since then, it has sold just an additional 20,000 copies bringing its three year sales tally to about 33,000 units. Look, we'll defend Lars' drumming, but there is no way to defend or spin this.
To put it in perspective, Metallica's last official release, Death Magnetic sold just under 500k copies in its first week alone. The generally panned St. Anger sold 418k in it's first week.
One thing we should note is the band didn't exactly do this record to cash in, they did it because they wanted to collaborate with Lou Reed. So they could care less the album bombed.
Still, this just shows that people really listened to our review.
[via]
