Los Angeles, June 16: With two fewer selling days than most releases have when they hit the charts, rock stalwart Metallica manages an opening-week sum larger than that which greeted its last album in 1999.
The band's new St. Anger thus leads the Billboard 200 for the week ended June 8, marking the fourth straight week -- and the seventh time in the past 11 -- that a rock album has topped the chart.
The shorter selling window came as a result of the decision by the band's U.S. label Elektra and distributor WEA to shift the album's release date from June 10 to an off-cycle Thursday bow on June 5. That move mirrored the accelerated release that Interscope/Universal staged earlier this year for 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', which has not only been the best-selling title of 2003 (4.9 million thus far) but also owns the year's biggest opening frame (872,000 copies).
The day before St. Anger went on sale, its label and distributor predicted the title might start in the range of 250,000-350,000, but it sold even more: 418,000 copies. That beats the 300,000 units that greeted Metallica's symphonic S&M in November 1999 and is on par with the openers of its 1997 and 1998 releases.
Reload, the last Metallica set to reach No. 1, arrived with a sum of 435,500 in 1997. The following year, the band's Garage Inc. opened at No. 2 with 426,500.
Bureau Report
