As mentioned in last week’s music industry analysis, metal fans tend to buy discographies. This week, the Billboard charts revealed how much this phenomenon affects physical media sales.
According to the charts for the week of February 13, not only is Ride the Lightning riding the charts, but so are three other classic Metallica albums and Smell the Glove:
- Metallica – Ride The Lightning
- Metallica – Metallica
- Metallica – …And Justice For All
- Metallica – Kill ‘Em All
- Metallica – Master of Puppets
While in the past the music industry sought to produce hit songs, with the democratization of music production we now suffer from too much music, most of it produced for the participation award and not quality. Metal may offer industry the “niche model” that it craves.
I can’t believe the black album is above Kill ‘Em All and Master of Puppets. Quite frankly, I can’t believe Ride The Lightning is above them either, but it’s nowhere near the shit sandwich the black album was. Mandatory sterilization is looking more and more promising as time marches on.
Good Morning, have some fresh Espiritismo instead https://youtu.be/DY-_xYH-9t4
My retort: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlS1JCn0zrY
Unless one is writing jingles for Serta, referring to a pillow in your subject matter is always a bad sign, regardless of genre.
Except in emo metal
Good to see Ride the Lightning riding the top spot. Can’t see the point in listening to anything past that album now apart from the instrumental tracks.
Same here. The instrumental tracks are my favorites from the band, but the surrounding albums past Ride the Lightning are too dramatic. And Smell the Glove broke the tradition. Then again, Metallica has built a nearly half-century career on two really good albums, so they might be worth studying in business schools…
Everything after Kill ‘Em All is utter shit.